a final year project

hi all i know maybe this is not really appropriate. but just trying it out to see if things can work out.

i a university student trying to write a thesis on the following topic
project title: “Using COLLADA for developing shared virtual environments”

i have read thru some of the online info regarding collada but still am abit puzzled and confused. therefore i thought maybe i can seek some help from someone out there to help me understand or provide some leads to a list of questions i have came up with to help me write my thesis. i understand some of the questions are quite no brainers to most of u here and i probably have similar answers to them. so u can leave out those u think are direct ones. but mayb if u can contribute (anything) to the less obvious ones, i would be eternally grateful to you. it would also be good then if i can contact some of the kind souls and add your names as credits in my thesis acknowledgement.

the following are the questions:

  1. Understand the pipeline (Explore, Understand, See)
  • what is Collada?
  • what is the purpose of Collada?
  • where does it come from?
  • what are some of the opinions about Collada?
  • is it open source? where to get source codes and documentation? which components are in
    open source release? how they fit together?
  • is it a standard? how does it vary from existing standards, pros and cons (eg. ISO-Standards
    VRML, X3D, OpenGL, DirectX etc.)
  • who use Collada and how to use Collada?
  • how well is it supported by (digital content creation (DCC) tool, middleware, graphics card
    manufacturer) vendors and (other) groups?
  • understand the (game) engines how they implement Collada (in general)
  • if opensource engines available, download and study source codes that
    implement Collada?
  • if proprietary engines used, any information on howthe engine interact
    with models and scenes defined by Collada?
  1. How to make use of physics in Collada
  • how users define Collada with physics?
  • what kind of & how are physics attributes attached to the geometric content defined in Collada
    elements / assets?
  • how is physics intepreted and implemented by the major middlewares eg.( Ageia (PhysX),
    Havok, Bullet, ODE ) in their scenes display?
  • any source code release? download? simple demos?
  • commercial packages being sold? price plans? buy? limitations?
  • portfolio of (high) profile implementations? GoogleEarth?
  • case study: bitmanagement.com support of Collada (with physics?)
  • BS Contact 7.1 (most recent that support Collada)
  • to what extent is Collada support? what feature of Collada is currently not supported?
  1. Find out how collaboration (if it is possible) can be done between users (players, in a
    game context) using Collada
  • what is collaboration (scope)? what sort or collaboration (if any) is possible?
  • can independent users to Collada collaborate through shared scenes? over internet in
    particular?
  • main Collada content stored and ran at server?
  • distinct Collada (avartar, geometry) content stored and altered at client?
  • scene information refresh (at decent rates) at all users’ views to achieve shared
    scenes?
  • physics added to give more realistic 3D scenes over the web?
  • can middleware be included into application packages (middleware, browser, Collada) which run
    shared scenes over internet?
  • collaboration of sorts? (facilitate abstraction and ease of use)
    users: 3d content, interaction inputs and response;
    browsers: medium tools;
    middlewares: Collada implementation.
  • what it takes to make an application which implement Collada
  • web browser plugin which runs Collada? possible? if possible any leads?
  • standalone application? mimic some existing middleware?
  • haptic technology? work with devices that create and involve virtual objects which the
    user can interface with via the sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations and/or
    motions to the user? possible?
  • another field of study: collaboration in interactive learning
  1. Data security in use of Collada to safeguard Intellectual Property in content creation
  • storage in cache on client side?
  • will content ownership be violated if client just grab Collada from cache?
  • binary encoded form of Collada?
  • so that a client can only run a Collada at a specific server to obtain meaningful
    information (see proper content)
  • jiberish content otherwise?
  • or acknowledge creative common license upon publish with appropriate credits?
  • or need to understand scope of Collada use in content creation? mindset change?

hehe, trying to get someone else to do your work for free ?

You should buy the book where you will find most of the answers :slight_smile:

On the other hand, I have to say your task is rather large! Once you get all the basis, you should come back here with one questions at a time for help !

  • Remi

hehe, yup i got the book n been reading it for months. i will b back, hopefully with the basis clear and yes one question at a time. =)