Phaneros: Visibility‐based framework for massive peer‐to‐peer virtual environments

• Published in: Computer animation and virtual worlds 2019-01, Vol.30 (1), p.n/a
• Main Authors: Çevikbaş, Şafak Burak, İşler, Veysi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 3D streaming; content streaming; distributed virtual environments; peer to peer; potentially visible sets; update dissemination; Virtual environments; Visibility
• ISSN: 1546-4261; 1546-427X
• DOI: 10.1002/cav.1808

Contemporary distributed virtual environments are growing out of terabytes of 3D content and hundreds of thousands of users. Server–client architectures have become inadequate for fulfilling the scalability requirements. The peer‐to‐peer architectures provide inherently scalable, cost‐effective distributed solutions for distributed virtual environments. We present a fully distributed peer‐to‐peer framework, Phaneros, which is capable of providing necessary means to realize more efficient and more scalable massive distributed virtual environments. Using the presented visibility‐aware interest management, Phaneros performs better than existing overlays, achieving single‐hop update dissemination while having lower bandwidth requirements. The provided visibility‐aware 3D streaming scheme distributes 3D content more efficiently without creating any significant load on the server. Our test results show significant improvements over existing frameworks. Red peer is publishing a query for content in Cell A which is visible to Green peer and Blue peer. Green and Blue peers receive the query through the topic which they are subscribed to. Peers do not see each other but their AOIs intersect and allow the querying. Key findings •Phaneros provides fully distributed peer-to-peer update dissemination and content streaming for Distributed Virtual Environments. •Phaneros uses Potentially Visible Sets for Area of Interest Management. •Phaneros significantly reduces update dissemination and content distribution costs.