The realXtend project

Open Source Platform for Interconnected Virtual Worlds

Presentation at #NVWN

Nordic Virtual Worlds Meeting

April 2011

History & Organization• Founded by Juha Hulkko in 2007• Currently four main development companies:

– LudoCraft (www.ludocraft.com)

– Evocativi (www.evocativi.com)

– Playsign (www.playsign.net)

– Studio Enne (www.enne.es)

• An open source project coordinated by the realXtend association (founded in 04/2011)

– developers and users can become members

– Center for Internet Excellence (cie.fi) at University of Oulu helps to run the assoc

• Name owned by realXtend foundation which is also a channel for supporters to fund the project

• Supporters include Juha Hulkko, Nokia, City of Oulu, Tekes and some smaller organizations

Technology• At first the project started working on the Linden Lab open

source viewer and OpenSimulator server• Later (early 2009) due to technical and licensing

constraints with the Linden Lab viewer, we decided to start work on the next-generation Naali (Arctic Fox) viewer– First end-user version released in early 2010– Completely replaced the earlier version by late 2010

• 2H / 2010 work began on the Tundra server module– Lightweight– Off-line mode included– In early 2011, so far all the developers and many users have

migrated to Tundra (as an alternative to Opensim)– We are keeping eyes & ears about about whether Opensim, Tundra

or something else is the best for which application.

The Bottom Line

• realXtend represents the state of the art in open virtual worlds– Chosen as the partner for the Smithsonian project by

Immersive Education Initiative

• Virtual reality technology offers fantastic possibilities if you know how to utilize it– The development companies have accumulated

know-how on both the technology and its use for business cases

• Right now it’s important to find partners with most potential use cases– Visualization, simulation, education, communication

etc.

Contact

• Project manager Antti Ilomäki (antti.ilomaki@realxtend.org)– Non-profit platform development

– If you don’t know who else to contact, Antti is always a good choice

– Lead architect Toni Alatalo about tech (toni@playsign.net)

• Mailing lists– http://groups.google.com/group/realxtend (users/general)

– http://groups.google.com/group/realxtend-dev (development)

– #realxtend & #realxtend-dev on irc on freenode• Companies contacts

– www.ludocraft.com

– www.evocativi.com

– www.playsign.net

– Applications and commercial services

Visuals

Nantes Project

School of the Future –Project

School of the Future –Project

Avatar technology

Chesapeake Bay demo

Worlds are not hardcoded

Looks and behaviour are completely defined by the applications

UI elements are downloaded from servers, not bundled in the viewer

Custom client-server functionality is easy to add – there is no hardcoded protocol that defines a fixed featureset

Not every virtual world has avatars – or a single avatar per user- games like Pong or Chess- using astronomical or anatomical simulators