Co.Kildare,

VisualExpresso:Generating a Virtual Reality InternetVisualExpresso:Generating a Virtual Reality InternetDavid Cleary,Diarmuid ODonoghue12Department of Computer Science,National University of Ireland,Maynooth,Co.Kildare,Ireland.12eeidcleyeei.ericsson.se dodcs.may.ieAbstract.Abstract.Finding knowledge from vast quantities of data is a difficult task,made simpler by visually representing this information.The Internet can beconsidered a vast(global)database,but whose unstructured format frequentlyleads to a feeling of being“lost in hyperspace”.Visualising this structure canmake browsing a more productive endeavour.In this paper we introduce ameans of“lossy”translation from HTML to VRML(Virtual Reality ModelingLanguage).This allows for the generation of a virtual world containing thestructure with some content information about the site.This implements a newmetaphor for intranet and internet browsing.1 1IntroductionIntroductionWhen presented with an overwhelming quantity of information,it is difficult to knowwhere to start,especially when trying to gain an understanding of the overall contentof the information.This problem is complicated even further when the information isdistributed and inter-linked by dynamic references.The WWW(World Wide Web)isan example of such a system,where a collection of electronic documents areconnected by hyperlinks across numerous machines around the world.The currentmeans for navigating and retrieving information from the WWW is by usingconventional web browsing technology as offered by Microsoft and Netscape.Theseoperate by manipulating graphical interfaces with the aid of search engines.Howeverthis method of interacting with the Internet using a page view is frustrating and forcesthe user into a DFS(Depth First Search)of the electronic documents which oftenleads to a fruitless search for information.This could be overcome by viewing theweb site in its entirety.One possible solution is to understand its structure,and allowing meaningful randomaccess to it.A structure map for a subset(web site)of the WWW can beaccomplished by firstly constructing an abstract representation of the site,presentingits meaning to the user in a graphical form.Many web sites try to accomplish this byproviding static site maps in the form of two-dimensional picture.VisualExpresso is apowerful visualisation tool written entirely in Java,that allows site structure maps tobrowsed in three dimensions,and unlike most other site map tools can be used in anumber of different ways:A Network Management tool allowing Webmasters overview sites.A Site Design tool,enabling the visualisation of web site structures in a breadthfirst manner from any starting position.This is of great importance when designingan effective and navigable site.A navigation tool,the virtual environment allow the user to select any page at anylevel in the site structure,immediately jumping to the page by simply clicking themouse.Being able to visualise the neighbouring HTML pages from your current positionallows greater freedom when searching a site for a particular piece of information.It also avoids revisiting pages when re-searching a site.Another major problem when dealing with information is the format in which it ispresented to the user.One possible solution is to present the information in graphicalfrom.Various techniques exist for visually understanding large information spaces1.The most realistic way of understanding abstract representations is to map them tothe physical world,by manipulating three-dimensional graphics that allow interactionwith constituent graphical objects.Fig.1.Screen Shot taken of a virtual world representing a web site created by VisualExpresso.VisualExpresso generates virtual worlds representing the structure and contents ofintranet sites.This requires extensive computing power to firstly retrieve the entirecontents of a web site,second to parse the entire contents of this site,third createintermediate structure and finally generate the final virtual world.The almostunlimited expense of such operations limits our tool to generating Intranet worlds,where“off site”internet locations are detected via their URLs and are depicted byspheres that are texture-mapped with globes-as in Figure 1.Visualisations of largesites also imposes heavy requirements on the browsers platform.For a true virtualinternet world,each site requires an equivalent virtual world representation.Thus,constructing a virtual reality internet would require extensive computation,distributedacross many(or all)internet servers.The solution we propose to this seeming impasseis to have each site generate its own intranet world,which is lined to other sites viathe existing URL locations.This distribution of computation makes possible thecreation of a Virtual Reality interface to the internet.Without this distributedcomputation,the overwhelming complexity and cost of generating an almostunbounded Internet world is intractable.Furthermore,by a standard repr