Tool and object based synchronization in collaborative haptics

Distributed collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) have traditionally utilized an object-based synchronization model. Avango (Tramberand, http://www.avango.org/paper/paper-final.pdf), for example, implements a distributed shared memory model and synchronizes nodes and fields. Similar models are used by CVEs based on MPEG-4 (Hosseini and Georganas, 2002). We discuss existing object-based synchronization models and the implications of extending these techniques for distributed haptic CVEs. We propose an alternative tool-based synchronization model that synchronizes the event(s) that cause change rather than their effects.