Immersidata Management: Challenges in Management of Data Generated within an Immersive Environment

The possibility of immersing a user into a virtual environment is quickly becoming a reality. At the Integrated Media Systems Center (IMSC) we are exploring the unique new challenges presented by such systems in the context of our own implementation, the Media Immersion Environment (MIE). A novel aspect of immersive environments is the new data types that need to be supported. In this report we present our experience with three new data types: haptic, avatar, and application coordination data. These data types have a unique set of characteristics that results in new challenges for their acquisition, analysis, content-based querying, and integration requirements associated with data-intensive immersive collaboration (e.g., scalability, synchronization, and cross-analysis needs). Currently, MIE is used to host three applications that generate experimental data streams of these new data types and hence allow us to study their requirements in a realistic setting. We have already identified significant properties of these new data types and through our prototype implementations we hope to achieve an even better understanding of their characteristics, develop solutions that enhance immersive experiences, support advanced queries, optimize storage and retrieval, and increase system efficiency and scalability.