vCOM: virtual commerce in a collaborative 3D world

Existing electronic commerce applications only provide the user with a relatively simple browser-based interface to access products. Buyers, however, are not provided with the same shopping experience, as they would have in an actual store or shopping mall. With the creation of a virtual shopping mall, simulations of most of the actual shopping environments and user interactions can be achieved. The virtual mall brings together the services and inventories of various vendors. Users can either navigate through the vendors, adding items into a virtual shopping cart, or perform intelligent searches through "user and vendor agents". The electronic mall prototype also allows the user to communicate with an "intelligent assistant" (IA) using simple voice commands. This assistant interacts with the shopper using voice synthesis and helps him or her use the interface to navigate efficiently in the mall. Real-time interactions among entities in the virtual environment are implemented over the Run Time Infrastructure of the High Level Architecture (RTI/HLA), an OMG and IEEE standard for distributed simulations and modeling developed by the US Department of Defense.