Interconnecting distributed virtual worlds using Metabots: performance evaluation against the traditional client-server model

Virtual Worlds evolution is breaking the barriers of virtual isolation, thus allowing users to participate in geographically dispersed and culturally diverse places. At the same time, mobile agents have been established as a solid programming method for heterogeneous networking and computing environments. Our work focuses on the definition of a distributed Virtual World reference platform for enhanced users' experience. Towards interconnecting virtual worlds with mobile agents, we have further enriched the concept of a human‐like appearance avatar. We propose two distributed virtual world architectures, namely loose and tight. In parallel, we present a relevant implementation scheme along with experimental results that prove the performance enhancements achieved against the classic client/server model. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Virtual Worlds evolution is breaking the barriers of virtual isolation, whereas mobile agents have been established as a solid programming method for heterogeneous networking and computing environments. This article proposes a distributed Virtual World reference platform for enhanced users' experience. The concept of Metabot is used to demonstrate the convergence of software agents' characteristics with 3D World avatar attributes, and a relevant implementation scheme is presented along with experimental results that prove the performance enhancements achieved.