A grid-filtered region-based approach to support synchronization in large-scale distributed interactive virtual environments

One of the main challenges for large-scale distributed virtual environments (LDVE) designers is to keep the shared virtual environment (VE) consistent among all participating users. As the number of participants grows, more information is generated, increasing network traffic and augmenting latency. One way to deal with the increasing traffic is to restrict the data exchange only among entities that are interested in receiving information about other entities. Data filtering mechanisms that limit and control the network traffic in VE applications have been successfully reported in the literature. However, these solutions usually make use of a large number of multicast groups, besides sending unnecessary and redundant data. This paper describes a grid-filtered region-based data distribution management scheme, which combines the positive aspects of both region-based and grid-based DDM methods to reduce network traffic and latency using a minimum number of multicast groups. It is also discussed how this scheme can be used as a potential solution to keep shared VEs synchronized among a very large number of participants, a determinant parameter for the success of LDVE applications.