Virtual Worlds Group


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Welcome to the Virtual Worlds Group!

The Virtual Worlds Group (vworlds.org) is an organization of individuals who are dedicated to helping advance the body of research on online multi-user applications. The founding members of this group are employees of Microsoft Research and have created a software platform called Virtual Worlds that enables users to build these applications and quickly prototype user interfaces for them. We are releasing the source code of the Virtual Worlds software in conjunction with the binary builds in an effort to actively foster research in this area.

[Learn more about the Virtual Worlds Group]
[Read the FAQ]
[Read the Source License]

The Virtual Worlds Platform

The platform software consists of a server application and a set of binary components that can be accessed programmatically via an API. The API is available to script languages as well as C++. We have also created some sample applications and user interfaces that we distribute separately.

The platform supports development of applications with customizable user interfaces (3D, 2D, and text) and can be used for rapid prototyping of any type of distributed multi-user application from 3D virtual worlds to distance learning interfaces with streaming media and chat.

Virtual Worlds was developed mostly in C++ for use on personal computers running the latest Microsoft operating systems (Windows 98, Windows NT, and Windows 2000). All of the sample user interfaces to the platform are written in Dynamic HTML with the intention of running under Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 5.0 and newer.

[Download Virtual Worlds]
[Take a tour of the SDK]
[See Sample Application Gallery]

Latest News

11/22/00: The Windup World has been released as a live hosted sample and as a buildable world kit!

10/18/00: The online source browser has been enhanced. (Still IE only!)

8/24/00: MusicWorld Sample Application now available! Build your own MusicWorld and host it live!

8/18/00: A paper on HutchWorld was presented at Virtual Worlds 2000 in Paris in July. The paper and rest of the proceedings are available online.

6/30/00: Flatland and DesktopWorld Sample Applications now available.

6/28/00: More videos are now online.

6/20/00: Now you can browse source online. Useful for debugging or taking a glimpse before downloading. For IE only!

6/9/00: View a HutchWorld (56k) video, a social support community for hospital patients. More info in the gallery.

5/5/00: Demo MusicWorld live! Try this fun interactive music space to see Virtual Worlds in action.

4/19/00: New Mailing list software. See mailing list page for the details.

3/20/00: An online symposia on 3D in virtual environments was held with attendees in VWorlds linked with attendees in MediaMoo. A transcript is available.

3/7/00: Full mailing list archives and site wide search (top of the page) are now available.

2/21/00: Old newsgroup articles from the previous site have been archived.

2/10/00: Virtual Worlds Platform source code now available

2/10/00: Welcome to the new VWorlds site! - Join one of our mailing lists and get involved!

1/25/00: Created by British Telecom and contributors, Ages of Avatar continues it's live "Inhabited TV" production in the UK.

12/12/99: Explorers of the Ancient World: Egypt shown at CSCL