An Ontology-Driven Approach for Modeling Behavior in Virtual Environments

Usually, ontologies are used to solve terminology problems or to allow automatic processing of information. They are also used to improve the development of software. One promising application area for ontologies is Virtual Reality (VR). Developing a VR application is very time consuming and requires skilled people. Introducing ontologies in the development process can eliminate these barriers. We have developed an approach, VR-WISE, which uses ontologies for describing a Virtual Environment (VE) at a conceptual level. In this paper we will describe the Behavior Ontology, which defines the modeling concepts for object behavior. Such an ontology has several advantages. It improves the intuitiveness; facilitates cross-platform VR development; smoothens integration with other ontologies; enhances the interoperability of VR applications; and allows for more intelligent systems.