Virtual Worlds

BMIS 650 (e-commerce)

Spring 19_20

Instructor: Dr. Nada el Mais.

Abbas Abou Hamdan ID: 81630056

Zahraa Farhat ID: 81330141

Zeinab Al Moussawi ID: 81530470

 Virtual Worlds

Table of contents

Title Page Number

Introduction 1

Definitions 1

Virtual Worlds through history 1

Features 3

Virtual world as software 3

Virtual world’s hardware 3

Virtual Reality 3

Virtual worlds in various fields 4

Gaming 4

Education 4

Space Exploration 5

Tourism 5

Design and furniture 5

Films/movies 6

Sports 6

Live concert or performance 6

Medication and Health 6

Commerce 7

Issues and Limitations 7

Future of Virtual Worlds 8

Conclusion 8

References 10
 Virtual Worlds

I. Introduction:

 Definition:
What is a Virtual World? Since its start, there was no general and universal accepted
definition of the term “virtual world”. If we take each part of it on its own, the term virtual
means near; the term world here refers to an environment not a whole planet. However,
what is it in technical terms?

We can define the virtual world as a place described by words or projected through
pictures which creates an imaginary space that is real enough that you can feel you are inside
of it.

In the book of [Diehl, 2001], virtual worlds are defined as "computer-based models of
three-dimensional spaces of objects with restricted interaction". However, it could be also
second dimensional and textual. It is further asserted that multi-user worlds are distinguished
by the fact that several users (working on different machines) can move through the world
and interact with one another or with the objects at the same time.

Virtual world applications come in many shapes and sizes (e.g. video games, Second Life,
flight simulators, computer models, virtual reality, etc.). Some of the promise and popularity
of virtual worlds lies in their ability to offer an alternative means to communicate,
collaborate, and even to organize economic activity. These virtual alternate realities carry the
potential to change dramatically the ways in which we interact with one another in both the
real world and the virtual.

 Virtual Worlds through History:

Technologists were developing simulated environments. One milestone was the
Sensorama in 1956. Morton Heilig’s background was in the Hollywood motion picture
industry. He wanted to see how people could feel like they were “in” the movie. The
Sensorama experience simulated a real city environment, which you “rode” through on a
motorcycle. Multisensory stimulation let you see the road, hear the engine, feel the
vibration, and smell the motor’s exhaust in the designed “world”.

However, those ideas weren’t considered the start of Virtual Worlds as a technology; the
term wasn’t used yet. The “official start” of virtual world:

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First Generation Virtual Worlds (1978 – 1984): [ CITATION sch \l 1033

]

The history of virtual worlds began with the first MUDs (Multiple-User Dimensions or
Dungeons) in 1978, designed as role-playing adventure games in the mid-seventies. A MUD
is a shared textual virtual environment, which can be explored by its users through a series of
simple commands such as "look", "go" and "take". As she moves within the world, a user
runs across other users with whom she chats, collaborates for a given task or fights for
resources.

After MUD, the first generation of virtual worlds continued with Avatars (explained later
in ‘Virtual world as software’). The term avatar started in the 1979 in a PLATO
(Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations) role playing game called Avatar.

The first generation is about small-scale systems, Text based displays and Fantasy based
games.

Second Generation Virtual Worlds (1985 – 1996): [ CITATION sch \l

1033 ]

The start of the second generation began with Habitat; a multiplayer online role playing
game developed in 1985. The second generation has larger scale systems, better graphical
displays, more use of avatars in games and social world, besides, the user became more
capable to control objects.

Third Generation Virtual Worlds (1997 – present): [ CITATION sch \l

1033 ]

Third generation virtual worlds have seen an increase in budgets. The increasing performance
of computers and other devices graphically drew users more into the game. Third generation

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has massive scale worlds, striking 3d presentation, highly customized avatars, user driven
communities, and adult &child user bases.

 Features in virtual worlds: (Barbara, 2011)

Presence:
It is the ability to customize avatars by users. Each avatar is different from others and
represents a certain single user.
Communication:
Communication in virtual worlds is not a traditional, computer-textual based type of
communicating. Virtual worlds, through avatars, allow users to communicate verbal and
gestural close enough to the human-human communication.
Collaborative Capacity:
The design of the network architecture supporting virtual worlds allows the interaction of
huge amount of users all over the world.
II. Virtual world as software:
Virtual world is a composition of various graphical representations, second and third
dimensional characters, open worlds and spaces …. Etc. The most important concepts
within the software of virtual worlds:
Avatars: In world “persona”: they are icons, figures, or even virtual bodies (people,
monsters…etc.) representing virtual worlds’ users. Avatars can be chosen or created and
customized.

Virtual Environment: 3D virtual spaces where people, entering the space via avatars,
meet, interact with one another, and learn in the multi-user environment in real time.

III. Virtual Worlds’ Hardware:

The hardware used to make the virtual worlds work, are the computer, for third person
view, and other sensory synthesis devices (VR headsets like Google daydream; Sony
PSVR …) for first person view.
IV. Virtual Reality:

The usage of sensory synthesis devices led to the usage of term Virtual Reality (VR). This
is the experience lived by the user in virtual worlds from a first person view, making him/her
feel like the virtual world is real. Virtual reality is sometimes mistaken to be the virtual
world. Will somehow, it is true. However, there is a slight deference between the two terms;

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the virtual world term is more general and inclusive. Virtual world is about the third person
view; you can be in both, the real and virtual, at the same time. It is also including the first
person view where the user is totally in the virtual world mistaking it with the real one, this
is what virtual reality is about. VR is a part of the virtual world.

V. Virtual Worlds in Various Fields:

Gaming:
Video games are a kind of platform for virtual worlds. This is due to the fact that the user
interface of video games usually consists of 2D or 3D rendered worlds and environments
inhabited by character models. Virtual worlds involve avatars inhabiting a digitally created

space, which can be perfectly transformed to the videogame format/medium.

[ CITATION css \l 1033 ] Some of the virtual games include

environment very near to be real making it a virtual life. Examples for popular virtual
games (secondlife, the Sims…)

MMO (massively multi-player online), or MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online

Role-Playing Game): It is a huge and persistent open world/ space, including a huge number
of users accessing this virtual place at the same time. It is usually a term used to refer to
online gaming places (examples: Pubg, Fortnite and Darwin project). MMORPGs are role
playing games following MMO (Carina, 2018). In MMORPG, players assume the role of a
character in a physical setting, which is often fantastical in nature. In the open-ended
environment, players make decisions and develop their characters to their liking while
progressing through a story. Avatars are necessary elements in these games. Two examples of
popular MMORPGs include World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2.

Education:

“Teaching of anatomy is not easy, it needs great potential to be understood this potential
comes from application of virtual world in teaching”(Grimshaw, 2014). The usage of 3D
visualization for massive volume in information and databases, physiological principles or
basic anatomy can be understood by clinicians and students(Riva, 2014) .for instance ,virtual
world can help in exploring the organs by flying around ,inside, or even behind them(Riva,

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2014).Virtual world is a didactic and experiential educational tool. It allows a deeper
understanding of the connection between anatomical structures. (Riva, 2014)

Virtual worlds reduce the distances and provide excellent opportunities for an effective
online education through the collaboration of teachers’, subject domain experts’, students’
abilities from different countries or locations .it leads to the development of new teaching and
dynamic environment.

Space Exploration:

When there is a dangerous, difficult, too expensive activities virtual world is very useful. It
allows the users in space relationship exploration that it may be impossible in physical world
to be explored such as astronomical simulation and molecular modeling. People being trained
by using of simulators in virtual world are cutting down risks met in real training. There are
virtual labs staffed with several engineers of different backgrounds and train crew members
(Grimshaw, 2014). virtual world allows us to view Mars by the help of NASA that create
their own mission to space, the lead producer of the project, named Mars 2030 says, “the goal
here is to create an experience that everybody can have, and go to Mars and be an astronaut
and go on missions that unlock what Mars is”. Their aim is to make this available on VR
devices the public already have access to, such as the Oculus Rift. (May 2016, n.d.)

Tourism:

Virtual reality technology helps people plan their next trip, and travel virtually. They
introduced the first in-room virtual reality travel experience in 2015. They also created VR
booths called Teleporters which give users: 

 Three-minute 4D experience of different tourist destinations like London and Hawaii.

 Virtual tour of their hotel rooms.

Examples for virtual technologies for travel are Everest VR, Marriott’s Travel and Google

Earth VR. [ CITATION red \l 1033 ]

Virtual reality also makes it easier to know about different cultures when “virtually” visiting

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museums and making a tour. Examples for this technology are The National Museum of
Finland, The National Museum of Natural History and the virtual tour in the Lebanese arts
museum (visit: http://artmodernemv.gov.lb/)

Design and furniture:

As in all fields, development did not stop at a specific thing, but rather included most
areas, especially in the field of auction house virtual institution. It skipped the pen, paper and
ruler, and even skipped the initial drawing of the maps on the computer to become a virtual
drawing with 2D and 3D. It uses to imagine a clear, detailed and accurate drawing for your
home or company with decoration and the way to arrange the furnishings inside the rooms
and their shapes, sizes and colors are all in 2D and 3D to facilitate select the design that you
like it. To graph any maps you need to use the Virtual World Grammar and the Virtual World
Builder Toolkit (VWBT) (Trescak, Rodriguez, and Esteva 2009)

Films/movies:

Although we have the 2D the 3D being used in Cinema and Theaters, but the VR
technique merge the audience with the movie, making him feel like they are inside the movie.
Some of films that use this technology: Notes on blindness, Lincoln in the bardo, Bashir’s

Dream, Bear71, My Brother’s Keeper, The Matrix and Surrogates. [ CITATION

red \l 1033 ]

Sports:

Virtual world technologies allow people, who like sports, and even athletes to experience
sport games using virtual platforms. Using these platforms, they can practice their game
through a simulation, alone or with team. This technology is used in many sports, like
NASCAR racing (iRacing, an online racing simulation), Soccer (Be Your Best (BYB), a
virtual reality tool that helps sharpen a player’s mental performance) and Basketball (NBA

games are available in VR streams). [ CITATION red \l 1033 ]

Live concert or performance:

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Virtual reality will help you to watch the live concerts. VR technology can help to solve
the problem of tickets scalpers and scarcity; virtual worlds help you to watch the concert
from your home, whenever you want.

The following performances use virtual world in their concerts: Kasabian, Panic! At the
Disco, Billie Eilish, Imagine Dragons, Post Malone and Wizz Khalifa. Examples for virtual
worlds for concerts are Next VR and MelodyVR.

Medication and Health:

Virtual worlds are becoming very important in the field of health care and medication.
Virtual world are being great in training doctors and medical staff to be ready to face real life
events.

In surgeries: Software companies have built virtual simulations from diagnostic images
by constructing a 3D anatomical model of a patient. These virtual models are beneficial for
both new and seasoned surgeons, for it allows them to locate tumors, see the exact areas for
incisions, and practice challenging procedures beforehand. (Giuseppe, 2014)

Mental Health: VR programs give its users the ability to choose a place they like, be in it
and meditate while there “virtually”. The American Journal of Psychiatry (AJP)
has reported the effectiveness of meditation sessions done inside virtual environments in

reducing the stress and anxiety. [ CITATION www3 \l 1033 ] VR can

help in the situations of: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Panic Disorder and Phobias.

Commerce:

Virtual worlds are making it available for its users to make transactions (buy, sell and
trade). Commerce, in virtual worlds, is even getting its own name V-commerce. Using
virtual world tools, users/customers now can do a virtual tour in the place they want to buy
from, view the items they want to buy in 2D and 3D. Virtual worlds are making the online
shopping experience better. Examples of V-commerce: Trillenuem and iStaging.

Virtual worlds are now including too many real world fields, Rather than what were
mentioned, virtual worlds also include virtual courtrooms, virtual banking, training to face
disasters and many others.

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VI. Issues and limitations in Virtual worlds: [ CITATION web \l

1033 ]
o Technical issues:

Current virtual worlds don’t allow certain features such as personality. Another limitation is
lack of interoperability between virtual worlds; this means that if you customize your own
avatar in a virtual world, you can’t use it in another one but you have to start creating from
scratch. Besides:

 Virtual acoustic displays that require a great deal of computational resources in order
to simulate a small number of sound sources
 Force feedback and tactile displays, still in their infancy, with limited functionality
 Image generators that cannot provide low-latency rendering of head-tracked complex
scenes, requiring severe trade-offs between performance and scene quality
 Problems of latency and poor registration. (Giuseppe, 2014).

o Social Impact:

There are some negative influences of VR towards social implications. Users who engage
in action and violent virtual games become more aggressive. Besides, some users tend to
spend a lot of time in virtual worlds; thus, they will be less social and will be much related to
the virtual life.

o Cyber Sickness

Sickness can occur because of using VR for a long time, or other factors related to virtual
worlds such as vection (illusion of self-movement in VR) and lag (occurs when a user
perceives a delay between the times a physical motion). Cyber sickness can range from
slight headache to an emetic response.

VII. Future of Virtual Worlds:

Technically, virtual worlds in the future will include better graphics and more
interaction of the users with the virtual environment. However, the plan of the
producers isn’t just expanding in the technical quantity; the goal is to reach all the

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fields. Everything we do in virtual worlds is done on one virtual space; we have one
space for commerce, one for sports, one for learning and one for each other field. The
thing that might happen in future is having a one complete virtual world containing
various fields. This will make people very related to the virtual life and use it for most

of their needs. Everyone could live his life in future from home. [ CITATION
pag \l 1033 ]
The other future goal, for the virtual worlds, technologies is to make the virtual world
have a direct impact on the real world. However, can this really be possible?

VIII. Conclusion:
Virtual world technology isn’t new born. Its idea is from more than forty years ago.
However, “virtual worlds”, since its start, wasn’t just a new technology that is going
to have its own users and own fields. It affected almost all fields and helped in their
growth and evolution. Virtual technologies just created another life for people to live
and be in. in these worlds, although it’s virtual, people can nearly do everything they
need in the real daily life; people can learn, play, train, entertain and even work. Well,
the only things people can’t do in virtual life are those related to the human being’s
biological nature (eat, drink, clean …). However, with all its benefits to other fields,
virtual worlds have its own issues and limitations, as any other technology. These
issues are technical, social and related to the health. Producers can fix the
technological off course.
Nevertheless, the question to be asked here is:
Can the virtual world solve these problems, avoid those issues and expand more or it
just reached its peak?

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References

1. Trescak, T., Rodriguez, I., Esteva M. (2009): General shape grammar in-terpreter for
intelligent designs generations. In: CGIV’09
2. Rodriguez I., Puig A., Esteva M., Sierra C., Bogdanovych A., Simoff S. (2008),
Intelligent objects to facilitate human participation in virtual institutions. In: Web
Intelligence, pp. 196–199

3.[ CITATION red \l 1033 ]

4. Carina G., (2018), what is a virtual world? Definition and classification.

5.[ CITATION css \l 1033 ]

6.[ CITATION sch \l 1033 ]

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7.[ CITATION web \l 1033 ]

8. Giuseppe R., (2014), Medical Clinical Uses of Virtual Worlds.
9. Barbara C., (2011), Virtual Worlds and E-Commerce: Technologies and Applications
for Building Customer Relationships.

10. [ CITATION www3 \l 1033 ]

11. [ CITATION pag \l 1033 ]
12. Grimshaw, M., 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Virtuality. OUP USA.
13. May 2016, S.L. 18, n.d. Virtual Reality and Mars: 4 Ways Tech Will Change Space
Exploration [WWW Document]. Space.com. URL https://www.space.com/32912-
virtual-reality-humans-to-mars.html (accessed 5.9.20).
14. Riva, G., 2014. Medical Clinical Uses of Virtual Worlds. pp. 649–665.

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