11541594
A network-centric approach to enhancing the interactivity of large-scale distributed virtual environments
In Distributed Virtual Environments (DVEs), where many simultaneous human users interact with each other in a shared, 3D virtual world, enhancing interactivity is of crucial importance, since the success of a DVE greatly depends on users' perceptions. In general, enhancing interactivity for large-scale DVEs with thousands of geographically distributed users faces various challenges such as large Internet latencies, high resource demands and high potential of security threats. In this paper, we propose a network-centric approach to enhance the interactivity of DVEs by directly minimizing the network latencies in client-server communications. We consider two key problems: the server placement problem and the client assignment problem. We have formulated these two problems and proved that they are both NP-hard. We then adapt and develop several degree-based server placement approaches and greedy client assignment algorithms. Extensive simulation studies using realistic models have shown that our approach is very effective in enhancing the interactivity of large-scale DVEs.
13349007
Greedy Algorithms for Client Assignment in Large-Scale Distributed Virtual Environments
Distributed Virtual Environments (DVEs), such as online games, military simulations, collaborative design, etc., are very popular nowadays. To support large-scale DVEs, a multi-server architecture is usually employed, and the virtual world is partitioned into multiple zones for load distribution. The client assignment problem arises when assigning the participating clients to the servers. Current approaches usually assign clients to servers according to the locations of clients in the virtual world, i.e., clients interacting in the same zone of the virtual world will be assigned to the same server. This approach may degrade the interactivity of DVEs if the network delay from a client to its assigned server is large. In this paper, we formulate the client assignment problem, and propose two algorithms to assign clients to servers in a more efficient way. The proposed algorithms are based on the heuristics developed for the well-known Terminal Assignment problem. Simulation results with the BRITE Internet Topology Generator show that our algorithms are effective in enhancing the interactivity of DVEs.
5971410
Time-space consistency in large-scale distributed virtual environments
Maintaining a consistent view of the simulated world among different simulation nodes is a fundamental problem in large-scale distributed virtual environments (DVEs). In this paper, we characterize this problem by quantifying the time-space inconsistency in a DVE. To this end, a metric is defined to measure the time-space inconsistency in a DVE. One major advantage of the metric is that it may be estimated based on some characteristic parameters of a DVE, such as clock asynchrony, message transmission delay, the accuracy of the dead reckoning algorithm, the kinetics of the moving entity, and human factors. Thus the metric can be used to evaluate the time-space consistency property of a DVE without the actual execution of the DVE application, which is especially useful in the design stage of a DVE. Our work also clearly shows how the characteristic parameters of a DVE are interrelated in deciding the time-space inconsistency, so that we may fine-tune the DVE to make it as consistent as possible. To verify the effectiveness of the metric, a Ping-Pong game is developed. Experimental results show that the metric is effective in evaluating the time-space consistency property of the game.
5800162
A sequential coloring algorithm for finite sets
Abstract Let X be a finite set and P a hereditary property associated with the subsets of X . A partition of X into n subsets each with property P is said to be a P-n -coloring of X . The minimum n such that a P-n -coloring of X exists is defined to be the P -chromatic number of X . In this paper we give a sequential coloring algorithm for P -coloring X . From the algorithm we then get a few upper bounds for the P -chromatic number. In particular, we generalize the Welsh-Powell upper bound for ordinary chromatic number to the case of P -chromatic number of any finite set X .
8520561
Bounding the bandwidths for graphs
Let G;H be nite graphs with jV(H)j>jV(G)j. The bandwidth of G with respect to H is dened to be BH(G) = minmaxuv2E(G)dH((u);(v)), with the minimum taken over all injections from V(G )t oV(H), where dH(x;y) is the distance in H between two vertices x;y 2 V(H). This number is involved with the VLSI design and optimization, especially when the \host" graph H is a path Pn or a cycle Cn of length n = jV(G)j. In these two cases, BH(G) is known to be the ordinary bandwidth B(G) and the cyclic bandwidth Bc(G), respectively, and the corresponding decision problem is NP-complete. So estimations of B(G), Bc(G) and in general BH(G) are needed, especially in determining the bandwidths of some specic graphs. In this paper, we rst propose a systematic method for obtaining lower bounds for the bandwidth BH(G). By using this method, we then get a number of lower bounds for B(G) and Bc(G )i n terms of some distance- and degree-related parameters. c 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
10785532
Probabilistic recognition of human faces from video
Most present face recognition approaches recognize faces based on still images. We present a novel approach to recognize faces in video. In that scenario, the face gallery may consist of still images or may be derived from a videos. For evidence integration we use classical Bayesian propagation over time and compute the posterior distribution using sequential importance sampling. The probabilistic approach allows us to handle uncertainties in a systematic manner. Experimental results using videos collected by NIST/USF and CMU illustrate the effectiveness of this approach in both still-to-video and video-to-video scenarios with appropriate model choices.
963663
Example Based Non-rigid Shape Detection
Since it is hard to handcraft the prior knowledge in a shape detection framework, machine learning methods are preferred to exploit the expert annotation of the target shape in a database. In the previous approaches [1,2] , an optimal similarity transformation is exhaustively searched for to maximize the response of a trained classification model. At best, these approaches only give a rough estimate of the position of a non-rigid shape. In this paper, we propose a novel machine learning based approach to achieve a refined shape detection result. We train a model that has the largest response on a reference shape and a smaller response on other shapes. During shape detection, we search for an optimal non-rigid deformation to maximize the response of the trained model on the deformed image block. Since exhaustive searching is inapplicable for a non-rigid deformation space with a high dimension, currently, example based searching is used instead. Experiments on two applications, left ventricle endocardial border detection and facial feature detection, demonstrate the robustness of our approach. It outperforms the well-known ASM and AAM approaches on challenging samples.
8965145
A robust algorithm for probabilistic human recognition from video
Human recognition from video requires solving the two tasks, recognition and tracking, simultaneously. This leads to a parameterized time series state space model, representing both motion and identity of the human. Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithms, like Condensation, can be developed to offer numerical solutions to this model. However in outdoor environments, the solution is more likely to diverge from the foreground, causing failures in both recognition and tracking. In this paper we propose an approach for tackling this problem by incorporating the constraint of temporal continuity in the observations. Experimental results demonstrate improvements over its Condensation counterpart.