eon coliseum: pioneering multi-modal communication in virtual

Whitepaper

© Copyrights 2009. All rights reserved. EON Reality Pte Ltd. 1

EON Coliseum: Pioneering Multi-Modal Communication in Virtual Reality Gabriyel Wong, Technical Director EON Reality

While the Internet has significantly reduced communication barriers across geographical boundaries, effective communication remains a challenge when there is a lack of consistent, scalable and illustrative environment. EON Coliseum™ fills this gap by providing a platform where people can present their ideas, communicate complex concepts and collaborate using rich media objects such as web pages, presentation slides, video, live feeds and interactive 3D content.

Leveraging on EON Reality’s core rendering technology, EON Coliseum™ empowers the individual with the full freedom to create virtual environments that packs powerful communication capabilities. From virtual classrooms to key boardroom meetings, presentations come alive with EON Coliseum™ smart networking engine that cleverly optimizes quality of multi-modal communication on different systems so that connected parties can enjoy a seamless experience in every session. Users can select from a wide range of multi-media options which EON Coliseum™ offers to realize the most demanding presentations in efficacy and style.

What is EON Coliseum?

EON Coliseum is a technology platform that provides communication capabilities for virtual environments developed in EON Reality's suite of products. It is built on EON Reality’s flagship product, EON Studio, through several new nodes and auxiliary tools. Using EON Coliseum, developers enjoys a broader scope of interactive virtual reality application designs that goes beyond traditional visualization.

Table of Contents

What is EON Coliseum? Key Benefits

Feature Highlights Competitive Analysis

Software Design Frequently Asked Questions

Operation Requirements Acknowledgement

Whitepaper


Key Benefits At‐a‐Glance

Easy creation of realistic virtual environments using EON’s market-

proven suite of products (EON Studio/Professional/Ultra2009) Multi-modal communication brings virtual collaboration to the next

level and cut costs in the long run while increasing productivity Crystal clear Voice-over-IP (peer-to-peer/conference) Real-time streaming video Virtual Presentation Surface allows users to present information

(PDF, PPT) is a hassle-free way in a 3D environment Datalink connects to virtually any external software via TCP/UDP Multi-user capability for collaborative work in remote, interactive

virtual environments Communicate complex concepts in a clear manner without the need

to switch between many applications Proprietary network management technology supports optimized

and scalable multiplexed communication for large numbers of concurrent users

EON Coliseum

Instant Messaging Clients

Web/Dedicated Teleconference

Software

Land‐line Teleconference

Text/images/file‐sharing √ √ √ X

Video broadcast √ √ √ X

Voice communication √ √ √ √

Scalable multi‐user system with 3D avatars/objects in virtual environment

√ X X X

Viewing in 3D/stereo 3D √ X X X

Connectivity with external systems

√ X X X

Extensible/configurable platform

√ X X X

Figure 1: How EON Coliseum powered virtual communication software compares to existing telecommunication solutions.

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Feature Highlights

Streaming Video Node

Turns any planar surface into a live video channel Supports industrial standard streaming (via Adobe Flash streaming

server)

VoIP Node

Zero-cost voice communication Crystal clear, secure voice communication Multi-party communication

Virtual Presentation Surface Node

Automatically maps major document formats (PPT, PDF, JPG) onto a virtual presentation surface; no more painful switching between applications to show presentation slides

Options to present slides according to the preference of the user Supports run-time updates – no hassle of restarting software for last-

minute inputs

DataLink Node

Simple to use, generic data structures for lighting-speed integration with virtual any external system/software such as Matlab, LABView et cetera.

Robust and configurable communication using internet standards (TCP/UDP)

Multi‐User Server/Network Entity Node

Client-server design brings virtual environments to life by supporting interaction between virtual entities such as avatars in real-time

Messaging function provides users with additional communication channel in addition to voice.

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Never possible before, existing and new customers of EON Reality can now enjoy connected applications through the use of EON Coliseum. Not only can EON Coliseum connect to applications built using EON Studio, they can even be linked to external systems and software via TCP/UDP. This underscores EON Reality’s understanding of not just connected people, but connected applications as well. The diagram in Figure 4 shows the possible combination of internet-linked systems using EON Coliseum.

EON Coliseum Virtual Presentation Surface (VPS)

The concept of a Virtual Presentation Surface in EON Coliseum surrounds the transformation of a 3D planar surface to an information whiteboard. Consider the case where a professional who would like to illustrate ideas and concepts of a product using 3D technology. It would be painstaking to use a 2D presentation format (e.g. PPT, PDF) to describe 3D data without the interactivity and not to mention, the difficulty in switching to another 3D application in order to present effectively. VPS allows the user to make use of the same presentation slides in a virtual environment in less than one minute. Application developers can choose an arbitrary number or types of Virtual Presentation Surfaces and unlimited methods to advance the slides based on the creativity of the presentation.

EON Coliseum Video Streaming Node

EON Coliseum adopts Adobe Flash’s real-time video streaming technology3 for broadcasting live video feeds in 3D virtual environments. Having the largest take-up rate in the market, Adobe’s Flash technology is used in numerous rich media applications with millions of concurrent users online daily.

Figure 5: Streaming video over internet using Flash enabled EON Coliseum

3 For more information on Adobe’s Flash video streaming technology, please visit http://www.adobe.com/products/flashmediastreaming/

EON Coliseum Streaming Video Application

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Users who are familiar with the Adobe Flash streaming workflow has nothing new to learn when it comes to integrating with EON Coliseum powered applications. This ensures both developers and end-users enjoy significant time and effort savings for maximum productivity in their work. In EON Studio, the streaming video node can be treated as a common material resource to be applied to a 3D planar surface. The application of such a material and the configuration of the video streaming resource location is straightforward. An additional benefit of using Flash streaming technology apart from its matured state is that Adobe offers an open source community version of the Flash streaming encoder software at no cost to the user4. EON Coliseum’s Flash streaming video node preserves all capabilities of the Adobe Flash so that users can be assured of maximum returns to their investment.

Figure 6: Adobe Flash Streaming Server Community Edition

EON Coliseum VoIP

The EON Coliseum VoIP client is a network enabled application which requires an EON Coliseum VoIP server to connect to in order to interact with other users. The VoIP server's tasks are very simple in the sense that all it does is keep track of where users are located and forward the voice-data it receives from a user to other users in the same conference.

4 The community version of Adobe Flash Streaming server supports up to ten concurrent users. Under the circumstance where more than ten user connections are required, it is possible to partition the connections to multiple Flash servers.

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VoIP Client/Server Interaction

An EON Coliseum VoIP client connects to a server by first opening a TCP connection (typically to port 10300) and afterwards sends a UDP "hello" packet (typically to port 10301) to the server. The TCP connection is used for handling all "administrative" commands like joining and leaving channels whereas the UDP connection is only used for handling voice-data. All administrative commands sent on the TCP connection are human readable and it's fairly simple to interact with the VoIP server using for example, Telnet in a Linux-shell or Windows command-prompt.

Voice‐data Transmission

Voice-data recorded by the VoIP client is transmitted to users in the same conference by sending the voice-data to the VoIP server which then forwards the voice-data to the other users. By having the server forward the voice-data takes the load of the clients so each client does not have to send its voice-data packet to every other user in the same conference. Since voice-data is simply forwarded by the VoIP server, a client can receive voice-data from multiple users at the same time. This increases the load on the client's download bandwidth but since a conference typically only have one speaker it's not a big issue and today's ADSL and cable internet users typically have higher download than upload speed. Given this information it's possible to calculate the bandwidth required for the server to host, say a twelve user conference. If one user is talking and uses a 2 KBytes/sec voice quality the server must transmit (12 - 1)*2 KBytes/sec = 22 KBytes/sec. If three users are talking it's 3*22 KBytes/sec = 66 KBytes/sec in bandwidth usage on the server. For each "non-talking" client participating in this conference where three people are talking they must have a downstream of at least 3*2 KBytes/sec = 6 KBytes/sec.

Security

EON Coliseum VoIP provides encrypted voice and data transmission. For most applications unencrypted transmission provides enough security in the way that a server and the channels on a server can be password-protected so unauthorized users are denied access. If, however, it is also important that the data being transmitted between clients and the server then it is necessary to use the encrypted features of EON Coliseum which uses SSL encryption for TCP data transmission and Blowfish encryption for UDP data transmission.

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EON Coliseum Multi‐user/Network Entity Node

With EON Coliseum multiple users can enjoy interacting in a single virtual environment via connections to a server. The network entity node provided in EON Coliseum manages the persistency of a 3D object’s properties and states in a virtual collaboration session. Each client registers its ownship to the server and the server would propagate updates to other clients in real-time. This ensures end-users experience seamless interactivity in an immersive 3D environment.

Figure 7: EON Coliseum Multi‐User Server maintains entity data persistency and keeps all connected clients up‐to‐date in real time.

EON Coliseum Datalink Node

Widely known, the distributed computing paradigm is of great importance in medium to large scale system software. EON Coliseum upscales the capability of EON Studio by abstracting its core rendering capability from extraneous computing requirements. The Datalink node in EON Coliseum is designed to support interfacing EON applications with external software and systems. Built around robust and industrial proven TCP/UDP protocols, data transmission cannot be made easier than the standard data type contains provided in datalink nodes. Since both network protocol transmissions are provided, end-users get to enjoy the benefits of guaranteed delivery as well as high speed data transmission, according to their preference and application design. With these data structures, EON Coliseum users can effortlessly link their applications to a remote software or machine with no extra programming effort.

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Is server hosting provided by EON Reality?

EON Coliseum comes with a multi-user server and a voice/messaging/file transfer server. These servers can be run on the users' machines without the need for special configuration most of the time. EON Reality does not provide generic server hosting services but users can request for consultation and technical support to implement local installations of EON Coliseum.

EON Coliseum allows connectivity to external software but what if special data/protocol definitions are required?

The data structures provided in EON Coliseum's datalink component support basic data transfers between local and remote machines using TCP and UDP. These containers allow users who do not need sophisticated or heavyweight communication protocol to develop their applications in lightning speed. However, for more advanced usage or the need for customized protocol definition development, EON Reality offers consultation, technical support and integration services to our customers in these aspects as well.

Do applications/clients developed out of EON Coliseum require a license to run?

No. The EON Coliseum license has to be acquired only by the developer and he is free to distribute copies of his client software since the connection load will be at his end.

How many clients can connect to an EON Coliseum server?

For effective communication, EON Coliseum is designed for small to medium group multi-user environments (i.e. 10-50). It can be used for broadcast though depending on the level of scaling of the server and the usage of EON Coliseum (e.g. >1,000 on a high performance server for video streaming). The optimal and maximum capability of EON Coliseum is largely related to the design of the networked virtual environment, e.g. (1) you do not have 50 people talking at the same time for voice communication, (2) you cannot fit 100 people into a conference room, (3) transmitting only required information over the network etc.

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What is the recommended specifications and operating environment for EON Coliseum?

EON Coliseum (Release 1.0) runs on EON Studio version 6.1.0.1809 and has been tested on Windows XP and Vista 32-bit. For optimal server performance, the server should run on a Windows Server 2003 SP2 (or later) dedicated server. Under normal operating requirements, one up-to-date server should be sufficient for EON Coliseum. However if the user would need to scale the services to a large extent, for example having many video feeds and voice connections and file transfers, then more than one physical server would be necessary.

How is EON Coliseum unique and competitive in comparison to other products which may offer similar features?

EON Coliseum is an absolutely critical technology that extends the virtual reality experience. It has been designed to provide multi-modal communication capabilities to VR software developers in mind. With our market analysis to-date, these features are not altogether found in our competitors' products. The workflow follows the tradition of EON Studio's suite of products in which the user is empowered with speed and ease of use in constructing VR applications.

What is EON Coliseum's target audience?

The target users are software designers and developers. Given the immensely powerful features, VR application developers can take a quantum leap beyond plain visualization and realize interactive, rich media, multi-modal communication designs that was never possible before in their product offerings.

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Operation Requirements

For best user experience, the following specifications are recommended for client machines:

• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz or faster • Windows XP Pro SP2/Vista • 2GB RAM • NVIDIA GeForce 9xxx series or later (for EON Ultra effects) • 50GB HDD • WebCam and/or good quality headset with microphone • EON Studio (prerequisite for Coliseum authoring and development) • At least 2Mbps/768Kbps (ADSL/Cable connection)

The following specifications are recommended for server deployment:

• Intel Pentium 4 Dual Xeon 3.2 GHz or faster • Windows Server 2003 SP2 or later • 4GB RAM • 50 GB HDD • Gigabit Ethernet (LAN)/5MBps external connection

EON Coliseum Technology Team

Gabriyel Wong Namhai Dang Kelvin Lee Simon Law

Acknowledgements

EON Reality, Inc. (USA) EON Development AB (Sweden)

Contact Information

Sridhar Sunkad {[email protected]} Gabriyel Wong {[email protected]}

EON Reality Pte Ltd 3 Anson Road #27‐01

Springleaf Tower S079909

eon coliseum: pioneering multi-modal communication in virtual

Documents

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virtual entities

virtual collaboration

virtual realitygabriyelwong

effective communication

configurable communication

eon realitys suite

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