From carson@siggraph.org Sun Jul 12 20:38:45 1998 Received: from siggraph.org (siggraph.org [205.168.252.205]) by dkuug.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA24281 for ; Sun, 12 Jul 1998 20:38:43 +0200 Received: from study.huntleigh.net by siggraph.org (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA00980; Sun, 12 Jul 1998 12:36:15 -0600 Message-Id: <3.0.32.19980712124031.00ed427c@siggraph.org> X-Sender: carson@siggraph.org X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 12:40:46 -0600 To: SC24@dkuug.dk From: Steve Carson Subject: Working Group on Synthetic Environments Formed Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" SC24 Members: The JTC 1 Imaging and Graphics Business Team has just formed its first Working Group with many more to follow over the next few weeks. Please publicize this WG in you national organizations and encourage interested parties to participate. Especially note the short time frame for this work (completion by 30 September 1998). --- The Imaging and Graphics Business Team has formed a new Working Group on Synthetic Environments. For more information or to join please consult: http://www.globalcollaboration.org/jtc1/igbt/sewg.html Synthetic Environments Working Group Charter Scope A synthetic environment is a representation of a natural or artificial environment, whose components are located in reference to a well-defined spatial origin and coordinate system. For representation of the natural environment, generally, this origin is either the sun or earth, however any celestial body (or even imaginary body) can be used. An important special case is that of geo-spatial locations referenced to the earth (including its surface, oceans, atmosphere and near space.) A synthetic environment includes terrain and terrain features (both natural and man-made); models of objects such as avatars, and certain localized features of the environment with complexity in structure or behavior (e.g., vehicles, buildings, smoke plumes, and tornados); the ocean (both on and below the surface); the ocean bottom including features (both natural and man-made) on the ocean floor; the atmosphere including environmental phenomena; and near space. In addition, a synthetic environment includes the attributes of the objects in the environment, as well as the relationships amongst the types of objects. The representation includes constraints necessary to insure correct automatically generated behaviors. These include topological and rule-based constraints. The purpose of the Synthetic Environments Working Group is to address all aspects of support for the creation, authoring and interchange of synthetic environments. The scope of this Working Group includes, but is not necessarily limited to, support for the creation of applications in these areas: 1. simulation and modeling, including simulation based design; 2. entertainment, including single user and multi-user games; and 3. instruction and training. The title "Synthetic Environments" is chosen to be neutral to: 1. media, (versus, for example, "Graphical Environments"); 2. technology (for example, "world" is a VRML specific term for a similar concept); and to avoid the over-used term "Virtual" (for example, "Virtual Environments"). Modeling includes: 1. the descriptions of the objects within such environments, for example their graphical and/or aural manifestations; and 2. selected aspects of the behavior of the objects within the environment, including interactions amongst the simulated entities, as well as interactions between the environment and such entities, where the entities respond to events in the synthetic environment or influence the synthetic environment. The mechanism(s) to be used for behavior description are to be determined, and will likely include at least scripting and programming language based representations. Specific aspects to be addressed or considered include: 1. representational polymorphism; 2. conceptual models of the represented objects; 3. data interchange formats; 4. APIs for reading, writing and/or accessing Synthetic Environments; and 5. real-time interchange of environmental information. Today, synthetic environments are created through a costly and time-consuming authoring process resulting in a platform-dependent database that supports a single application. One goal of the standards to be proposed by this working group is to enable re-use and sharing of such data between authoring systems, thereby eliminating the need to re-create each database from scratch and also enabling the creation of a market for lower-cost, shared synthetic environments and their components. Goals and deliverables 1. Determine if it is feasible to adopt International Standards in the area of synthetic environments. This includes determining: a.the maturity of technical approaches to synthetic environments; b.the degree of international consensus on the best technical approach(es); c.the benefits (or detriments) of standardization in this area. 2. As with all IGBT work, the plan is wherever possible to: a.identify and harvest work already proven in commercial practice outside ISO and IEC, and b.transpose that work into International Standards making only necessary and mutually agreed changes. 3. The working group will determine the feasibility of using the proven work on the SEDRIS (Synthetic Environment Data Representation & Interchange Specification) project as a basis for one class of standards to be proposed by this working group. For more information about SEDRIS, please consult: www.sedris.org . 4. Identify all other feasible base documents and approaches (if any exist). 5. Write one or more New Work Item Proposals (NPs) for standards development so support synthetic environments. Time line for completion 1. Complete work by 30 September 1998 and forward a NP to JTC 1 for ballot. Criteria for success 1. If the group determines that an approach based on SEDRIS is feasible, then creation of an NP. 2. If the group determines that an approach based on SEDRIS is not feasible, then a report documenting that fact to the IGBT with recommendations for further efforts (if any) in this area. Working Group Leader Karen Williams, National Imagery and Mapping Agency kwilliam@MSIS.dmso.mil Telephone +1-703-824-3454 Steve Carson Chair, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 Computer Graphics and Image Processing --------------------------------------------------------- Steve Carson phone: +1-505-521-7399 GSC Associates Inc. fax: +1-505-521-9321 5272 Redman Road e-mail: carson@siggraph.org Las Cruces, NM 88011 USA ---------------------------------------------------------