Environments

This thesis addresses problems fundamental to the creation of interactive 3D graphics appli-cations which feature real-time simulations carried out on distributed networks of computer workstations. Sufficient lag exists in present day hardware configurations to stifle realism, even when the computer simply mimics the sensed actions of users with rendered graphics. This problem is compounded when real-time physical simulations and more remote users are added. Even if the simulation algorithm is efficient enough to provide a timely and realistic reaction to inputs, the system must still further overcome subsecond lags in the sensor and rendering pipelines, to achieve spatio-temporal realism. First, a framework for distributing the real-time execution of non-rigid physical simulations is presented. This framework has been demonstrated to have an efficiency that increases nearly linearly as a function of the number of processors. To achieve this scaling behavior one must minimize network and processor contention; in our system this is made possible by replacing synchronous operation by the weaker condition of bounded asynchrony, and by use of compact modal representations of shape and deformation. The system also allocates computationa