A semantic approach of virtual worlds interoperability

This paper presents a semantic approach to a solution of the problem of interoperability for virtual worlds. The semantics of virtual worlds and virtual entities is described using the Influence/Reaction model of multi-agent systems. The main feature of this model is to clearly separate the description of an action (performed by virtual entities) and the consequences of the action. We demonstrate how this separation is highly favourable to design virtual worlds with interoperability. We use and extend the Influence/Reaction model to quantify the semantic compatibility level between virtual worlds and then to compute the resulting behavior of virtual entities involved in an interoperability session. Nevertheless, the Influence/Reaction model can work properly for interoperability purposes only if the symbols (names) used to describe the virtual entities are identical in each virtual world. This constraint is relaxed by using the ontology concept.