VIRTUAL REALITY AND MULTIMEDIA STREAMING FOR RICH EDUCATIONAL APPLICATIONS

In this paper a web-based system for multimedia educational content is presented. The main purpose of that system is to enable educational content creators to easily integrate 3D graphics and Virtual Reality (VR) into their media. It uses modern web technologies (WebGL & WebVR) and original utilities for vector animation streaming. The system provides client-server architecture for streaming of several types of media - text, 2D and 3D graphics, audio, control from input devices. It enables each client to use different settings for viewing the simulation, meaning that it can fallback to simpler media on hardware with less capabilities - e.g. standard 3D rendering instead of stereo rendering in case no VR headset is present. One of the main advantages of the system described is the means to organize various types of group activities, for instance presentation token, which can go round the students group.

The system can serve as a blueprint for developing rich multimedia applications in the education area, which foster teamwork, collaboration and learning by example. It can be used as a framework to build applied multiplayer games for educational purposes, fully utilizing modern web, 3D and VR technologies.