Home > Buzz 3D software Technical data > Server-based control

Another important aspect of the system, whether contained within Buzz logic scripts, or abstracted to a separate Knowledge Base Engineering (KBE) system, is the ability to permit remote-control of events within the Virtual World on one PC, from a separate system situated off the network, or in a different location.  This option presents opportunities for a teacher/student relationship as well as team working opportunities.  Whichever, as the student interacts with the visual component of a complex system the underlying effect of the student’s actions is being monitored by the teacher, and how the system reacts can be directly affected by the teacher’s (or the KBE’s) decisions.  The separate hardware platforms would be connected over a LAN, WAN or the Internet, and the teacher could visibly or invisibly walk around the student’s environment, sharing their space, and looking as closely as necessary to monitor their activities.

This presents a means of a teacher ‘throwing a curve ball’ to the student, and creating a situation where the student must adapt their behaviour.  For example, in dentistry training, as the student makes an incision into the gum, the underlying KBE would determine whether or not the cut intersects a blood vessel, and if so at what pressure level and direction the resulting bleed would occur.  Alternatively, the teacher could choose to cause the tooth to shatter unexpectedly, requiring the student to change the procedure to cater for the new situation.  The actions of the student would be recorded to the local database, and submitted to a remote server for analysis.

Curve-balls as referred to above can be easily managed, because the rule-set governing the student’s actions, and the patient’s reaction will be governed by direct teacher input, internal logic scripts or advanced external KBE systems.  The command issued to Buzz from whatever system can be manually or automatically originated, or even included as a random element with a given probability of a particular emergency occurring, which is not GUARANTEED to behave the same way each time.

The teacher’s ability to control the behaviour of elements of the environment are all driven from a friendly onscreen toolkit.  This aspect of the project is more a User Interface issue than a 3D graphics issue, and need not even be an aspect of Buzz 3D in the first stages; since the KBE or control system may be abstracted from the 3D visuals, such control could be affected by any desired user interface external to Buzz itself (eg. a web page).  Buzz 3D’s visuals could easily function as the ‘hub’ for both Teacher and Student, allowing a teacher on one system to cycle through any number of students’ environments or even walk around a ‘virtual classroom’ where individual 3D environments are shown clustered together, invisible to one another but visible to the teacher.

Needless to say, Buzz 3D being designed for both individual, team based, or classroom-focused activity opens up significant opportunities for Education and distance-learning in general.