A Wireless Software Architecture for Fast 3D Rendering of Agent-Based Multimedia Simulations on Portable Devices

A Wireless Software Architecture for Fast 3D Rendering of Agent-Based Multimedia Simulations on Portable Devices S. Cacciaguerra, M. Roccetti, M. Roffilli A. Lomi Department of Computer Science Institute of Advanced Studies University of Bologna University of Bologna Mura A. Zamboni 7, 40127 Bologna, Italy Piazza Scaravilli 1, 40127 Bologna, Italy E-mail:{scacciag, roccetti, roffilli}@cs.unibo.it E-mail: [email protected] Abstract— New technological developments in wireless networks (or environments) may be created where workers, after been and location-based information systems are greatly affecting the identified, may cooperate to accomplish common tasks. In this prominent scenarios represented by mobile markets, commercial challenging scenario, a great popularity has been gained by a and industrial organizations, and cooperative social modern form of “semi-automatic” collaborative scheme, environments. To model and control such complex organizational termed participatory simulation [1, 2]. With the term systems, the use of scientific methodologies, such as participatory participatory simulation Wilensky and Stroup [3] refer to such simulation and agent-based modeling is becoming increasingly role-playing cooperative activities aimed at exploring how common. Further, users of these collaborative systems demand complex dynamic systems evolve over time. As an example of the availability of sophisticated tools that are able to present participatory simulation, consider that of a virtual stock visually the results of cooperative simulation activities on the exchange, where each player (investor) could play the role of a screen of handheld devices. In this context, we have designed and developed a software architecture able to support the execution virtual buyer or of a seller who engages in the activities of the of agent-based participatory simulation activities, and to render resulting share exchange dynamics. them in a 3D virtual world over wireless devices. We report on Obviously, we have just mentioned only a simple example, several experiments, gathered on the field, showing that the but a wide set of possible content areas for participatory architecture we have developed is able to render, in a timely simulation include different scientific and technical fields, fashion, on a wireless device, the results of cooperative simulation ranging from the spread of a disease, to the flow of energy in activities performed by agent-based programming platforms. an electric network, to the diffusion of innovation, to the Smart services; 3D rendering on handheld devices; Multimedia distribution of goods in an inventory system [5]. technologies; Wireless scientific visualization; Participatory From a scientific standpoint, participatory simulation simulation; Agent-based modeling; Mobile business games typically employs some form of Agent Based Modeling Simulation (ABMS) technology. Simply put, an ABMS I. INTRODUCTION platform is a programmable modeling environment for The wireless revolution has started with Internet phones simulating complex systems where programmers can give and continued with many kinds of wireless handheld devices instructions to several independent agents working in parallel. that allow users to access the Internet. Thanks to the technical In essence, in an ABMS the global state of the system emerges developments in high speed chips, mobile networks and as a result of the interaction of hundreds, or thousands, of software protocols, the wireless technology is enabling a wide elementary agents engaged in a variety of local processes such range of exciting possibilities, including, for example, wireless as exchange, cooperation and competition. These agents (which sensors networks, wearable computers, ubiquitous computing may be either completely controlled by humans or and innovative use of Web phones. automatically programmed) can play their moves based on an intrinsic capability of local investigation and local action. In this context, it is easy to envisage that future mobile users will enjoy a near ubiquitous access to the vast storehouse Perhaps the most common way to present the simulation of technical and intellectual resources offered by high results produced by the complex interactions of an ABMS- bandwidth (wireless) networks. For example, in social based virtual world is visual display. A prominent example of organizations, or in collaborative human environments, using visual representation to display the results of ABMS- workers are starting to exploit wireless technologies to connect based simulation is reported in Figure 1, where the graphical to colleagues and carry out different kinds of cooperative tasks, interface of the Massive system is reported from [4]. The including brainstorming, task planning, resources sharing, problem here is that the actual ABMS-based software instant messaging, and waving the Internet together. In essence, platforms only provide for limited graphical functionalities. due to the use of these new technologies, secure virtual spaces The reminder of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we illustrate the main features of the software architecture of the system we developed. In Section 3, we present a set of empirical results we obtained with a prototype implementation of our system. Finally, Section 4 concludes our work with some hints for future developments of our work. II. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE We have designed a (client-server) software architecture able to support the execution of ABMS-based virtual worlds and their 3D rendering on wireless devices (see Figure 2). The three main software components of our architecture are the following: i) the ABMS platform, ii) the 3D visualizer and, iii) Figure 1. Massive simulator: 2D graphical display (reported from [4]) the wireless network communication subsystem. As shown in Figure 3, a complete “execute and visualize” session of our system works as follows. Initially, a user from his/her device issues an order to his/her set of controlled agents in a virtual For example, well known ABMS platforms such as world. Netlogo, Swarm, Jas, and Repast only render their agent based models through a 2D raster graphics visualization methodology This order is intercepted by a dedicated user process, [6, 7, 8, 9]. termed Agent Manager (AM). After collecting orders from a In this context, the main contribution of our work is the given user, the AM sends them to its software counterpart on design of a 3D visualization engine that can be used to the ABMS platform, called the Request Manager (RM). Apart represent visually simulation results of ABMS-based virtual from the RM, the ABMS platform (hosted on a wired environments on mobile devices, such as laptops, PDAs and machine) is comprised of a State Updater (SU) and a Snapshot smart phones. From a graphical standpoint, it is worth Creator (SC). In essence, the SU computes, on a periodical mentioning that, as typical 3D rendering problems are here basis, a new state of the virtual world, based on the exacerbated by the need to display virtual worlds on wireless interactions with the system users. After that a new state has (possibly handheld) devices, we resorted to special rendering been computed, the SC constructs a text-based image of the techniques based on triangular meshes that guarantee an newly calculated state. Upon reception of these data, the optimal trade off between fast visual reproduction and device visualizer displays them on the screen of the wireless device. compatibility. Alongside a detailed description of the It is worth pointing out that all the above mentioned architecture of our visualization engine, we report a set of communications are carried out by the wireless network experimental results which confirm that an appropriate communication subsystem based on a TCP/IP stack. integration of our visualizer with the software architecture of the ABMS system enables a fast 3D representation on wireless devices. AMBS Wireless platform devices Request AM Manager Visualizer State Updater AM Snapshot Creator Visualizer Figure 3. An “execute and visualize” session Figure 2. ABMS rendering on different devices I Requests Manager visualizer for 3D rendering, as described in the following Subsection. II State Updater ABMS B. The 3D Visualizer PLATFORM The main obstacles that need to be tackled for the M development of the visual engine for an ABMS system concern III Snapshot Creator the choice of the most appropriate structuring of the hardware/software architecture. This architecture must be able IV Snapshot Manager to render visually on a wireless device the states of the 3D virtual worlds generated by the simulative platform. To this aim, we have developed a visual engine, based on open source V Virtual World Creator 3D graphical libraries, whose architecture is depicted in Figure 4. VISUALIZER The main software components of our 3D visualizer are the Snapshot Manager (SM), the Virtual World Creator (VWC) VI Rendering Engine and the Rendering Engine (RE). Upon receiving data into a FIFO queue from the ABMS through a wireless connection, the SM manages the subsequent activity of data decompression, and checks for their integrity. In turn, the VWC extracts data Figure 4. System architecture from the FIFO queue and creates the 3D virtual world based on a scene graph model which exploits triangular meshes as basic 3D objects [10, 11, 12]. This is accomplished by following an The next Subsections are devoted to examine, in turn, the augmented reality strategy, where

Load more