Computational Steering of Interactive and Distributed Virtual Reality Applications

In this paper we present a system that transfers the well-known computational steering paradigm to interactive and distributed Virtual Reality applications. Those are often used in areas like rapid prototyping and all kinds of vehicle simulation. The distribution has many different purposes and affects various subsystems of a VR application. Most of the currently existing systems are very specialized and have a proprietary design for data-exchange and coupling of the components. We propose a more flexible approach by designing a computational steering framework that is well-adapted to the needs of highly interactive and distributed VR systems. Thereby we achieve higher reusability and scalability for the steering component itself as well as the possibility to exchange and compare subsystems. As a proof-of-concept we adapted an existing driving simulator to the proposed computational steering framework and discuss the advantages and difficulties in the second part of the paper.