Caroline DESPRAT PhD in Computer Science

at IRIT (University of Toulouse - France) in ReVA team.

PhD thesis: Event driven Architecture for web-based Collaborative Virtual Environments : Application 3D Object Manipulation and Visualisation. PDF [FR]

Thèse de doctorat: Architecture événementielle pour les environnements virtuels collaboratifs sur le web : Application à la manipulation et à la visualisation d’objets 3D. PDF [FR]

Web technologies evolutions during last decades fostered the development of collaborative vir- tual environments for 3D design at large scale. Despite the fact that collaborative environments gather in a same shared space geographically distant users in a common objective, the hardware ressources of their clients ( calcul, storage, graphics ...) are often underused because of the challenge it represents. It is indeed a matter of offering an easy-to-use, efficient and transparent collaborative system to the user supporting both computationnal and 3D design visualisation and business logic needs in heterogeneous web environments. To scale well, numerous systems use a network architec- ture called "hybrid", combining both client-server and peer-to-peer. Optimistic replication is well adapted to distributed application such as 3D collaborative envionments : the dynamicity of users and their numbers, the 3D data type used and the large amount and size of it.

This document presents a model for 3D web-based collaborative editing systems. This model integrates 3DEvent, an client-based architecture allowing us to bring 3D business logic closer to the user using events. Indeed, the need of traceability and history awareness is required during 3D design especially when several experts are involved during the process. This aspect is intrinsec to event-sourcing design pattern. This architecture is completed by a peer-to-peer middleware responsible for the synchronisation and the consistency of the system. To implement it, we propose to use the recent web standard API called WebRTC, close to cloud development services know by developers. To evaluate the model, two user studies were conducted on several group of users concerning its responsiveness and the acceptance by users in the frame of cooperative assembly tasks of 3D models.

Keywords : collaborative virtual environment, peer-to-peer network, WebRTC, Web 3D, 3D design, distributed event-based system, hybrid architecture, event-sourcing.

Supervisors: Prof. Hervé Luga and Prof. Jean-Pierre Jessel

Defended on the 1st of December 2017. (Viva presentation [FR])

Current position

I am ATER (Attachée Temporaire d'Enseignement et de Recherche - temporary assistant professor) at Université Toulouse 2 Jean Jaurès since september 2016. This position allows me to do half teaching to undergrade and gratued students and half researching at the University until august 2018.

My research activities are focused on CSCW (Computer Supported Collaborative Work), web 3D and DDD (Domain Driven Design). During my PhD I looked into 3D collaborative design on the web using decentralized communication system.

Publications

Loosely Coupled Approach for Web-Based Collaborative 3D Design (Doctoral Symposium)

Caroline Desprat, Benoît Caudesaygues, Hervé Luga, Jean-Pierre Jessel

Proceedings of the 11th ACM International Conference on Distributed and Event-Based Systems (DEBS 2017) 19th-23rd of June 2017 , Barcelona, Spain - debs2017.org

Links PDF (on ACM) | Presentation slides

Abstract

Recent advances in Web 3D technology have opened a wide area for Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVE). While CVE are often viewed in a concurrency context, they need to provide a satisfying experience in terms of consistency, latency and recovery. Because (i) Event-Driven architectures (EDA) are well-suited for distributed application and (ii) traditional communication architecture (client- server) can be limited in such situations, this paper presents a loosely-coupled approach combining event sourcing with a hybrid communication architecture. This model aims to ensure a strong versioning system and resource availability for collaborative 3D object manipulation in a web browser. To evaluate acceptance of our system, we conducted a user study on groups of users working simultaneously on 3D cooperative assembly tasks. The results detail the users’ involvement evolution, qualitative appreciations of the system’s usability and the collaborative features.

3DEvent: a Framework Using Event-Sourcing Approach for 3D Web-Based Collaborative Design in P2P

Caroline Desprat, Hervé Luga, Jean-Pierre Jessel

Proceedings of the 21th International Conference on 3D Web Technology (Web3D'16), 22nd-24st of July 2016, Anaheim , CA, USA - web3d2016.web3d.org

Links Short paper PDF (on ACM) | Presentation slides

Abstract

Despite recent advances, especially in web-based Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) using real-time 3D content, Web technology still requires an efficient way to distribute and stream large-scale 3D data. In this paper, we present 3DEvent: an event-driven framework to collaboratively manipulate predesigned 3D content in real-time on a web-based platform. This work introduces a new approach in achieving 3D object manipulation tasks during collaborative design stages using event-sourcing. Usually, a client-server architecture supports updates to the 3D environment state. Peer-to-peer (P2P) allows direct communication between teammates reducing response times during collaboration and decreasing server load, reducing the costs of providers. 3DEvent enables P2P-assisted delivery of 3D dynamic content in a web browser via WebRTC. By combining concepts from distributed event-processing and mesh-processing, 3D independent rendering and event-based synchronization, we present 3DEvent framework and potential uses associated that support history-aware 3D applications into a unified distributed processing solution for 3D web-based CVEs.

A 3D collaborative editor using WebGL and WebRTC

Caroline Desprat, Hervé Luga, Jean-Pierre Jessel

Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on 3D Web Technology (Web3D'15), 18th-21st of June 2015, Heraklion, Geece (Crete) - web3d2015.web3d.org

Links PDF (on ACM) | Poster

Abstract

Our proposed research project is to enable 3D distributed visualization and manipulation involving collaborative effort through the use of web-based technologies. Our project resulted from a wide collaborative application re- search fields: Computer Aided Design (CAD), Building Information Modeling (BIM) or Product Life Cycle Man- agement (PLM) where design tasks are often performed in teams and need a fluent communication system. The system allows distributed remote assembling in 3D scenes with real-time updates for the users. This paper covers this feature using hybrid networking solution: a client-server architecture (REST) for 3D rendering (WebGL) and data persistence (NoSQL) associated to an automatically built peer-to-peer mesh for real-time communication be- tween the clients (WebRTC). The approach is demonstrated through the development of a web-platform prototype focusing on the easy manipulation, fine rendering and light update messages for all participating users. We provide an architecture and a prototype to enable users to design in 3D together in real time with the benefits of web based online collaboration.

Hybrid client-server and P2P network for web-based collaborative 3D design

Caroline Desprat, Jean-Pierre Jessel, Hervé Luga

Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision 2015 (WSCG'15), 9th-11th of June 2015, Pilsen, Czech Republic - wscg.zcu.cz

Links Full paper PDF (extracted from proceedings) | Presentation slides

Abstract

In 3D collaborative environments, users needs interactivity and real-time updates. With web-based applications, such requirement implies that conventional client-server -alone- is no longer enough. To overcome this unmet need, we propose a hybrid client server peer-to-peer (P2P) communication model based on pluginless web standards enabling users to design collaboratively 3D scenes. The client part includes a WebGL editor to visualize and edit 3D scenes while the server side provides data and ensure persistence. Using the WebRTC protocol, a P2P mesh is generated to transmit directly the updates through a scenes working group. The feasibility of our approach is demonstrated with a web-based prototype submitted to a qualitative evaluation highlighting the usage of WebRTC for direct 3D data transmission with low latency and high throughput, and WebGL for 3D rendering.

Master's Degree

Master Sciences Cognitives - Parcours Art, Science, Technologie (AST) (website)

Master thesis: Génération bio-inspirée de formes 3D artistiques pour l’impression 3D. PDF [FR]

Supervisors : Prof. Loïc Barthe and Prof. Hervé Luga

4 months internship at IRIT - VORTEX team

Presented at Journées de l’Association Française d’Informatique Graphique 2013, Limoges, France - asso-afig.fr

Links Paper [FR] | Presentation slides | Master's thesis

Abstract

Art always played a precursor role in the use of technology evolutions. Yesterday photography, then video, now biotechnologies and particle physics. 3D printing is one of the new fields of exploration that are offered. This paper presents an application that we made in order to investigate this open field. It generates, via a user-controlled process, models of 3D shapes structurally constrained to be 3D printed. Behind the term “generation”, we refer to the use of bio-inspired process in that we “grow” something. They are intuitively understandable and they also offer a good balance between constraints and customization. A generative process (parametric L-System) initially allows to get a reference shape. Then, a genetic algorithm is used to explore how controlled the shape space "around" this reference is. The smooth and organic aspect is made through the use of convolution surfaces which also includes the property to give a closed form ideal for 3D printing.

Informal Communications

  • SIGGRAPH 2016 feedbacks - Khronos Toulouse Chapter [SLIDES], 06/09/2016 at Etincelle Coworking, Toulouse