Semantic 4-dimensional modeling of VR content in a heterogeneous collaborative environment

Abstract

Interactive 3D content gains increasing use in VR/AR applications in different domains, such as education, training, engineering, spatial and urban planning as well as architectural and interior design. While modeling and presenting interactive 3D scenes in collaborative VR/AR environments, different 3D objects are added, modified and removed by different users, which leads to the evolution of the scenes over time. Representation of VR content covering temporal knowledge is essential to enable exploration of such time-dependent VR/AR content. However, the available approaches do not enable exploration of VR content with regards to its time-dependent components and properties, which limits their usage in web-based systems. The main contribution of this paper is 4--dimensional representation of VR content, which encompasses time being the fourth dimension. The representation is based on the semantic web standards and ontologies, which enable the use of domain knowledge for collaborative creation and exploration of content. This could improve the availability of VR/AR applications to domain specialists without expertise in 3D graphics and animation, thus improving the overall dissemination of VR/AR on the web. The representation has been implemented in a heterogeneous collaborative VR environment for urban design.