A Visibility-Driven Approach for Zone Management in Simulations

Abstract

Massively multi-user simulations aim to support a large number of users while keeping the communication among the parties synchronous and highly interactive. In this paper, we present a collaborative virtual architecture that supports a large number of users by dividing the virtual environment into multiple adjacent hexagonal regions in order to manage the interest of the entities. A master node, called a hybrid node, constructs a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) overlay network to connect and manage nodes that lie in its region. Messaging is done at the application layer rather than the network layer, and a node-joining algorithm is proposed to reflect the underlying network physical topology onto the data distribution pathways among the end hosts to enhance the system performance. In addition, the introduction of a buffer zone between adjacent zones reduces the number of connections and disconnections that occur when a node frequently moves at the boundary of the two zones and provides more resilience to the system. We also attempt to shift the messaging among parties in one region from a zone-based method to a visibility-driven method to refine their interest by enabling message filtering. The effectiveness of this collaboration architecture is tested through a prototype implementation and a high level application.