VINS - Shared Memory Space for Definition of Interactive Techniques

Valkov Dimitar, Giesler Alexander, Hinrichs Klaus

Abstract

Traditionally, interaction techniques for virtual reality applications are implemented in a proprietary way on specific target platforms, e. g., requiring specific hardware, physics or rendering libraries, which hinders reusability and portability. Even though abstraction layers for hardware devices are provided by numerous virtual reality libraries, they are usually tightly bound to a particular rendering environment and hardware configuration. In this paper we introduce VINS (Virtual Interactive Namespace) a seamless distributed memory space, which provides a hierarchical structure to support reusable design of interactive techniques. With VINS an interaction metaphor, whether it is implemented as function or class in the main application thread, uses its own thread or runs as its own process on another computer, can be transferred from one application to another without modifications. We describe the underlying concepts and present examples on how to integrate VINS with different frameworks or already implemented interactive techniques.