Collaborative 3D Environments over Windows Azure

Czech Technical Universityin Prague

Faculty of Electrical

Engineering

Collaborative 3D Environments over

Windows Azure

Jiri DanihelkaPhD Candidate, Department of Computer Graphics and InteractionProject Lead, R&D Centre for Mobile Application (RDC)Czech Technical University in Prague

Dr. Lukas KenclDirector, R&D Centre for Mobile Application (RDC)Department of Telecom EngineeringCzech Technical University in Prague



Engineering Collaborative 3D Environments over Windows Azure

Principal Questions How to create and distribute 3D

interactive environments over the cloud?

How to enable their creation for 3rd parties?

How to do it using scalability of Windows Azure Platform?

How to bring these worlds on various client platforms? (PC, tablet, phone)

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Engineering

Inspiration: (own, past) 3D Mobile Internet Project Interactive 3D client-server solutions

3D Mobile Talking Head 3D e-Shop

Technology VRML, Server scripts Standalone application or 3D-viewer plugin Server-based speech recognition and synthesis

http://www.rdc.cz/3Dinternet/ Best Paper Award, Danihelka, Hak, Kencl, Zara. 3D Talking-Head Interface to

Voice-Interactive Services on Mobile Phones. SiMPE Workshop at MobileHCI 2010 Android and iPhone licenses sold commercially Careful considerations of functionality distribution

Collaborative 3D Environments over Windows Azure 44

http://www.rdc.cz/3Dinternet/



Engineering

Long-term project big picture: 3D Collaborative Cloud Services

Natural interaction: speech, 3D environment, real-time, multi-user Architecture: new graphics technologies together with cloud

scalability & functions Fast creation & deployment of cloud-based 3D apps (e-Shops,

Games, Education, etc)

Collaborative 3D Environments over Windows Azure

Windows Azure Platform

InventorySQL Azure

Clientwith web browser

3D contentAzure Storage

SL 5

Businness logicAzure Compute

Clientwith

Windows Phone

SL 4XNA

Logic update

Geometry update

Inventory update

3D Service administrator

Interaction

DownloadInteraction

Download

Configuration Tools 5



Engineering

Prototype I: Single-user 3D shop with Talking Head on Azure

Graphics accelerated hardware

Windows OS (later also Linux and Mac)

Web browser (IE, Firefox, Chrome)

MS Silverlight runtime plugin 5

Virtual 3D Store app (.xap file)

XNA drawing surface

3D Store content (3D models, textures)

Microsoft datacenter

Windows Azure

Azure Storage

Content data files

Virtual 3D Store (.xap file)

Cloud (Windows Azure)Client (MS Silverlight5 in browser)4. .obj, .jpg

2. .xap

1. request

3. request


Azure Compute

Web Role

Web page

SL 5HTTP

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Engineering

Prototype II: 3D Teapot - Multi-user collaboration on a shared 3D object


Silverlight browser client XNA mobile app

pitch yaw color-30.5 34.5 #FFAC58

Represented by a simple, shared state

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Engineering

Demo




Client Software Architecture

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Azure Deployment Architecture

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Engineering

Detailed architecture – browser client


Azure Storage (Europe)

Azure Compute(West USA)

SQL Azure Server (South-Central USA)

Clientwith web browser

WebRole

Web page

SL 5

SL 5

1. http request

Web page

SL 5

2. download SL 5 page

3. SOAP communication withweb synchronization service usingWindows Communication Foundationlibrary (WCF)

4. store state to databaseusing SQL queries and Entity Framework

pitch yaw color

-30.5 34.5 #FFAC58

12




WP7 Marketplace(operated by Microsoft)

Azure Compute(West USA)

state

Windows Phone 7.5 Mango

WebRole

Application

SL 4 + XNA

1. download request

2. download application

3. SOAP communication withweb synchronization service usingWindows Communication Foundationlibrary (WCF)

Application

SL 4 + XNA

Detailed interconnection – mobile XNA client

SQL Azure Server (South-Central USA)

pitch yaw color

-30.5 34.5 #FFAC58

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Engineering

Measurement setup


Configurable auto-movement of teapot Logging latency of GetState & UpdateState operations 2 scenarios:

24 simultaneous instances at university classroom► Incrementally increasing # of instances► Excellent network connectivity► 2 instances per machine

2 simultaneous instances at a public café (Starbucks, Prague center)

► Typical use case► WiFi connectivity

Auto-movementLogging

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Engineering

Measurements - Latency


Latency (ms) Classroom Starbucks Mean 91.40 204.38St Dev 165.86 100.95Median 63 195Min 46 78Max 8078 2101

Classroom24 instances

Starbucks2 instances

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Engineering

Increase of response delay based on number of clients




Engineering

Set and Get operations


Writing to a database (Set) takes more time than retrieving data (Get)

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Engineering

Lessons Learned & Future Work

Azure lessons Carefully consider data-center and geographic

distribution► SQL processing elsewhere?

Atomicity of SQL operations has to be considered Shared state closer to web/worker roles UDP vs TCP Geographic distribution

Further Work Much more measurements Sharing state by other means – e.g. Azure Mobile Services Prototype 3: Multi-user seeing each other Integrate with speech recognition and synthesis Open platform for rapid 3rd party configuration Dynamic workload migration between client and cloud

based on immediate conditions and context




Engineering

Thank you! Q&A

R&D Center for Mobile ApplicationsDept of Telecom EngineeringCzech Technical University in PragueJiri DanihelkaRDC Project [email protected]

Dr. Lukas KenclRDC [email protected]

URLs:www.rdc.czhttp://www.rdc.cz/3Dinternet/http://danihelka.blob.core.windows.net/sync/usa/index.htmlhttp://danihelka.blob.core.windows.net/world//index.html


http://www.rdc.cz/

http://www.rdc.cz/3Dinternet/

http://danihelka.blob.core.windows.net/sync/usa/index.html




http://danihelka.blob.core.windows.net/world/index.html






Engineering

Czech Technical University in Prague

Established 1707 Edict of Emperor Joseph I. Among oldest technical universities in Central Europe

8 Faculties Electrical Engineering (since 1950) – FEE

► Computing, Telco, EE, Cybernetics, Electronics ~25’000 students http://www.cvut.cz/ Top 500 Worldwide, Top 120 TU Tight cooperation with:

Google IBM Microsoft Vodafone T-Mobile Cisco Honeywell Rockwell Automation


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Engineering

Department of Telecommunications Engineering Head

Prof. Boris Simak Staff

Researchers and teachers ≈25► PhD students ≈50

www.comtel.cz Teaching

Major provider of KME courses (Communications, Multimedia, Electronics)

Research Groups Wireless Network Signal Processing Transmission Systems Switching Systems Management in Telecommunications

Strong industrial collaboration: Vodafone, T-Mobile, Telefonica, Cisco, Juniper Networks –

JNAA signed 2012!, Huawei, 3M, Alvarion, Sitronics, Microsoft, IBM

R&D Centre for Mobile Applications


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http://www.comtel.cz/



Engineering

R&D Centre 4 Mobile Applications (RDC)

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Major Long-term Industrial Research Partners

Department research centre focused on industrial cooperation

Research areas Applications, Interfaces and

Infrastructure for the Mobile Internet► Voice and 3D Mobile Interaction► LBS and Mobile Crowdsensing► Energy-efficient Networks► Privacy and Security► Assistive Technologies► NG Network Architecture

~20 Students on Industrial Scholarship (top talent) Interconnected to live Vodafone CZ network On site GSM MSC and IBM Voice Server History of industry tech transfer Cross-departmental collaboration

CGI, Cybernetics, ... www.rdc.cz


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http://www.rdc.cz/

Science

Collaborative 3D Environments over Windows Azure