Structuring Interactions in a Hybrid Virtual Environment: Infrastructure & Usability
Tipo de Publicación:
Conference PaperOrigen:
International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications, Barcelona, Spain (En prensa)Palabras clave:
UsabilityResumen:
Humans in the Digital Age are continuously exploring different forms of socializing on-line. In Social 3D Virtual Worlds (VW) people freely socialize by participating in open-ended activities in 3D simulated spaces. Moreover, VWs can also be used to engage humans in e-applications, the so called Serious VWs. Implicitly, these serious applications have specific goals that require structured environments where participants play specific roles and perform activities by following well-defined protocols and norms. In this paper we advocate for the use of Virtual Institutions (VI) to provide explicit structure to current Social 3D VWs. We refer to the resulting system as hybrid (participants can be both human and software agents) and structured Virtual Environments. Specifically, we present v-mWater (a water market, an e-government application deployed as a VI), the infrastructure that supports participants’ interactions, and the evaluation of its usability.
An Infrastructure for Human Inclusion in MAS
Tipo de Publicación:
Conference PaperOrigen:
ECAI 2012: 20th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Montpellier, France (2012)Palabras clave:
Human-agent interaction; MAS infrastructureResumen:
The field of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) focuses on the design and development of systems composed of autonomous entities (i.e. agents) which interact in order to perform specific activities. In general, direct human participation in these systems is not considered. We advocate that 3D Virtual Worlds technology can be used to facilitate human inclusion in a MAS system. This idea is taken in Virtual Institutions (VI) which combine 3D Virtual Worlds and Electronic Institutions, an organisational MAS. In this demo we present an infrastructure, the Virtual Institutions eXEcution Environment (VIXEE), which enables the development and execution of VIs. We also provide an example application named virtual mWater (v-mWater) modelled as a VI using VIXEE. It illustrates the immersive experience provided to human participants as well as the enhancement of human-agent interactions.
