Scalable Virtual Environments (Work or Play Online With A Cast of Thousands)

Virtual environments have applications from gaming to disaster response training. However, today's approach typically limits each environment to running on only one server. Intel researchers have developed a new software architecture called the Distributed Scene Graph (DSG) that breaks the environment into separately executable components, which, when combined with a cloud computing model, allows applications to scale user experiences far beyond existing limits.

The DSG architecture enables massive scaling of the number of participants and the complexity of scenes by making it possible to add as much hardware as needed to create a truly immersive experience.

To enable this, the DSG architecture separates the technologies bundled in the traditional "simulator in a box" architecture into discrete components, such as client management, physical simulation, script processing, and scene persistence.