Virtual Worlds

Virtual Worlds 2000 is the second in a series of international scientific conferences on virtual worlds held at the International Institute of Multimedia in Paris La Défense (Pôle Universitaire Léonard de Vinci). The term "virtual worlds" generally refers to virtual reality applications or experi ences. We extend the use of these terms to describe experiments that deal with the idea of synthesizing digital worlds on computers. Thus, virtual worlds could be de fined as the study of computer programs that implement digital worlds. Constructing such complex artificial worlds seems to be extremely difficult to do in any sort of complete and realistic manner. Such a new discipline must benefit from a large amount of work in various fields: virtual reality and advanced computer graphics, artificial life and evolutionary computation, simulation of physical systems, and more. Whereas virtual reality has largely concerned itself with the design of 3D immersive graphical spaces, and artificial life with the simulation of living organisms, the field of virtual worlds, is concerned with the synthesis of digital universes considered as wholes, with their own "physical" and "biological" laws.

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Conferences and Trade Shows in Inhabited Virtual Worlds: A Case Study of Avatars98 & 99.- HutchWorld: Lessons Learned A Collaborative Project: Fred Hutchsinson Cancer Research Center & Microsoft Research.- Organisation and Visualisation of Tacit Knowledge in Virtual Communities.- Integration of Simulation Tools in On-Line Virtual Worlds.- Towards Digital Creatures in Real-Time 3D Games.- A Framework to Dynamically Manage Distributed Virtual Environments.- Using GASP for Collaborative Interaction within 3D Virtual Worlds.- Generic 3D Ball Animation Model for Networked Interactive VR Environments.- An Overview on Virtual Sets.- Creating Emotive Responsive Characters Within Virtual Worlds.- Avatar Physics and Genetics.- Virtual Living Beings.- A Sound Propagation Model for Interagents Communication.- Communication and Interaction with Learning Agents in Virtual Soccer.- 3D Clothes Modeling from Photo Cloned Human Body.- Toward Alive Art.- In Search of Vital Presence - Evolving Virtual Musics.- Birth of a New World Order: IceBorg.- A 'Virtual Worlds' Theatre of Memory (Scheme for a Contemporary Museum).- The World of Framsticks: Simulation, Evolution, Interaction.- A 3-D Biomechanical Model of the Salamander.- Virtual COTONS®, the Firstborn of the Next Generation of Simulation Model.- Basins of Attraction and the Density Classification Problem for Cellular Automata.- Text-to-Audiovisual Speech Synthesizer.- Virtual Environments for Visually Impaired.- VR American Football Simulator with Cylindrical Screen.- Augmented Reality Based Input Interface for Wearable Computers.- Multi Screen Environment with a Motion Base.