Refurbish a single user 3D application into a multi-user distributed service: a case study

Abstract

Through a multitude of different devices, such as phones, tablets, desktop systems etc., we are able to exchange data across the world, independently of location, time and the device used. Almost by default applications are extended with networking capabilities, either deployed locally on the client device and connecting to a server or, as the trend is now, fully hosted on the Internet (servers) as a service (cloud services). However many 3D applications are still restricted to a single platform, as it is costly in terms of developing, maintaining, adapting and providing support for multiple platforms (software as well for hardware dependencies). Therefore applications that we see now available on a variety of devices are either single-platform, single-user, non-real-time collaborative or graphically not demanding. By using an adaptive remote rendering approach it is feasible to take advantage of these new devices and provide means for old and new 3D oriented applications to be used in collaborative environments. In this paper, we look at the conversion of a single user 3D application into a multi-user service. Analyse the requirements needed for adapting the software for being integrated into the "Herd framework". Offering remote rendering to end devices, a single instance accessible to multiple users and in order to optimize each instance of the application for different devices the user interface representation is handled in a dynamically using a device profile, as well for handling different input techniques.