III: EAGER: Mapping Three-Dimensional Virtual Worlds

在线虚拟世界中的导航类似于在第一个搜索引擎开发之前搜索Web。用户可以通过偶然发现、浏览或口口相传找到感兴趣的区域，但他们只能搜索他们所在的特定世界。本探索性项目研究了一种能够跨多个世界收集信息的移动的爬虫技术，并允许虚拟世界以分布式、多服务器、多平台的方式增长。 特别令人感兴趣的是与传统平面Web互连的3D环境中的内容。在这项研究中，探索从3D环境中收集内容的策略，并使用这些内容，更好地了解用户如何利用3D环境，以及他们如何从更容易访问的跨平台搜索服务中受益。3D环境中的爬行与平面Web爬行有许多相似之处，但有额外的约束，可能会限制可以合理收集多少内容。将进一步探索收集的数据，例如，内容在3D环境中变化的频率，以及用户如何利用虚拟世界中的链接，与Web上的链接结构相比。此外，该项目还研究了3D环境中的流量模式如何与链接，建议和组相关。本项目的研究挑战是：（1）从分布式3D环境中收集内容。 这包括用于围绕3D环境导航以进行信息收集的方法，探索3D环境空间的映射，只能通过交互收集的附加信息的影响的分析，以及通过内部和外部链接可用的附加信息的表征。(2)更好地了解用户行为。研究的重点是调查的方式，用户链接模式是相似的，不同的，用户在平面网络上的联系，是否化身流量可以用来确定更广泛的用户兴趣，可以利用搜索过程中的网站。(3)支持跨平台搜索。 其目的是开发一个3D的3D对象本体和模式，类似于RSS，这将使虚拟世界服务器更容易地支持与外部搜索服务共享他们的数据。随着3D环境变得更加普遍和更加多样化，对跨平台搜索服务的需求将继续增长。 通过提高内容在平台和服务器上的可见性，该项目将通过提供有效的搜索机制，在大型分布式虚拟世界中找到所需的内容，从而使内容创作者能够专注于创建更高质量的3D环境。预期结果有望为探索如何在虚拟现实、镜像世界、和增强现实环境。通过创建一个开放的平台，该项目将为更多的研究人员提供在3D环境中工作的机会。 区域、交通和联系数据库将供其他研究人员下载和分析。 研究结果、收集的数据和爬行器将通过项目网站（http：//www.example.com）免费提供。virtualworldsearch.uark.edu

Navigating in online virtual worlds is similar to searching the Web prior to the development of the first search engine. Users can find regions of interest to them through serendipity, by browsing or word of mouth, but they can only search the specific world they are on. This exploratory project investigates an enabling mobile crawler technology that can collect information across multiple worlds, and allows virtual worlds to grow in a distributed, multi-server, multi-platform manner. Of particular interest is content in 3D environments that is interconnected with the traditional flat Web. In this research explores strategies for gathering content from 3D environments and, using that content, gain a better understanding of how users are utilizing 3D environments and how they might benefit from more accessible, cross-platform search services. Crawling in 3D environments has many similarities with flat Web crawling but has additional constraints that may constrain how much content can reasonably be collected. The gathered data will further be explored, e.g., how frequently content changes in 3D environments and how users utilize linking in virtual worlds as compared to the linkage structures on the Web. In addition, this project investigates how traffic patterns in 3D environments are related to links, recommendations, and groups. The research challenges in this project are: (1) Gathering content from distributed 3D environments. This includes approaches for navigating around the 3D environment for information collection are explored, mapping the 3D environment space, analysis of the impact of additional information that can only be collected via interaction, and characterization of the additional information that is available through internal and external links.(2) Gaining a better understanding of user behavior. Research focuses on investigating ways in which user linkage patterns are similar to, and different from, user linkages on the flat Web and whether or not avatar traffic can be used to identify sites of broader user interest that can be exploited by the search process.(3) Supporting search across multiple platforms. The aim is to develop a 3D 3D object ontologies and a schema, similar to RSS, that will enable virtual world servers to more easily support sharing of their data with an external search service.As 3D environments become both more prevalent and more diverse, the need for a cross-platform search service will continue to grow. By increasing the visibility of content across platforms and servers, this project will allow content creators to focus on creating higher quality 3D environment by providing effective search mechanism for finding the desired content in a large, distributed, virtual world.The expected results are expected to provide foundations for exploring questions of how to discover and rank a wide range of content in virtual reality, mirror world, and augmented reality environments. By creating an open platform, this project will provide opportunities for more researchers to work in 3D environments. The database of regions, traffic, and linkages will be made available for downloading and analysis by other researchers. Research results, gathered data and the crawler will be made available as freeware via the project Web site (http://virtualworldsearch.uark.edu).