Virtual Worlds Roadmap

Last week I donned my Web3D Consortium hat and participated in the second meeting of the Virtual Worlds Roadmap. Sponsored by Intel, Samsung, Electric Sheep Company, NGI Group, and Digital Space, the Virtual Worlds Roadmap seeks to increase the success rate of virtual world-based ventures and the productivity of investment through the publication and distribution of state-of-the-art thinking and analysis on:

• Visions of what value virtual world technology will bring to specific applications
• Technical and business barriers to achieving that value
• Case studies on successes to date
• A roadmap and timeline for achieving mass adoption of specific applications.

This was an intimate group full of familiar faces from the virtual worlds space. The 3D web open standard (X3D) had great representation at the event from both the Web3D Consortium and Exit Reality. Many in the crowd were impressed by the power of the open standard. A series of various industry demos and applications I showed throughout the day featured interactive 3D content working across multiple platforms and players to show true interoperability .

Led by Victoria Coleman and Sibley Verbeck, representatives from IBM, Intel, Samsung, Stanford, Sun, Web3D Consortium, and other companies discussed the roadmap for the group and broke into working groups to focus on future applications for virtual worlds. The groups focused on applications for the health industry, entertainment, enterprise, and museums.

I joined what became the Mixed Reality Museum working group and am very excited about the prototype application we discussed. So excited actually I became a nerd on a mission and am finishing up on a mixed reality example for our group's next meeting.

For those interested in helping virtual world and 3D web applications grow, the Virtual Worlds Roadmap is a group I recommend participation and support for.