Design, implementation and validation of a simulation tool for Networked Virtual Environments

The popularisation of Networked Virtual Environment (NVE) applications in several context, including social interaction and e-Health fields, makes them an interesting subject of study. The proper estimation of their network requirements are key to ensure a good user experience, an important factor that determines the acceptance and success of the applications. The studies focused on NVE with an important social component are relatively scarce. This paper presents the design, implementation and validation of a simulation tool to assist in the study of the requirements of a NVE application, Open Wonderland. This tool will facilitate the study of several parameters that define the user experience. The study describes the overall structure, development framework and models that define the traffic generation patterns and validates the simulation results by comparing its traces with real traffic from previous studies.