Olive

Basics

Publisher: Forterra Systems, Inc.

General Description: Forterra Systems builds distributed virtual world technology for the corporate, healthcare, government, and entertainment industries. Forterra's software and services enable organizations to train, plan, rehearse, and collaborate in training in a variety of areas. Using the OLIVE™ (On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment) Platform and industry standard PC hardware, the company says customers can rapidly generate realistic, collaborative, 3-D Internet solutions that scale from single -ser applications to large scale simulated environments supporting many thousands of concurrent users. The OLIVE platform had its origins in the engine used to create the virtual reality world There.com. Although OLIVE can be used to create an open online world (per the example of There), it is just as likely that serious clients will seek to purchase it for closed training and educational worlds. Note: All references to "the client" below refer to the purchaser of the OLIVE software, not any individual machines.

Price: Forterra's prices range from $75,000 for a small, single-processor LAN world to $250,000 for a distributed online network capable of handling 200-300 users, to a full online universe, which would be in the $ 750,000 range. The company offers varying levels and rates of support and maintenance, which are customized according to the client's needs.

Number of Users (active users, average usage rate): N/A, as this is a platform.

Installed base of assets (some measure of the assets already built for the system that could be purchased or otherwise acquired for use in an educational applications – e.g. buildings, equipment): Forterra has asset lists ("depots") which target various audiences, including first responders, military, healthcare, and others. Clients purchase the list, or lists, of assets that best suit their needs. They can then request additional assets from Forterra, or (more likely) build such assets themselves.

Existing levels of adoption by educational, government and corporate organizations: Clients include the Stanford School of Medicine, Stottler Henke, U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, Greenleaf Medical Systems, and several colleges and universities, among others.

Additional compatibility questions - to what extent can the environment be accessed through mobile devices? None at present, save wireless computers.

Can the environment be accessed through the client side without the backend server (i.e. without a connection)? Yes.

Primary purpose - gaming, educational, design: OLIVE is currently used primarily for training and education.

Size of the developers community: Almost all OLIVE development is done by Forterra at present.

URL: http://www.forterrainc.com/ (using "attach" function, put logo up here)

Name of Product

Basics

Publisher:

General Description:

Price:

Number of Users (active users, average usage rate):

Installed base of assets (some measure of the assets already built for the system that could be purchased or otherwise acquired for use in an educational applications – e.g. buildings, equipment):

Existing levels of adoption by educational, government and corporate organizations:

Additional compatibility questions - to what extent can the environment be accessed through mobile devices?

Can the environment be accessed through the client side without the backend server (i.e. without a connection)?

Primary purpose - gaming, educational, design:

Size of the developers community:

URL:

Related Links

The links below will lead you to sites that review or include discussion or information relevant to this product:

• (Name and URL):

• (Name and URL):

• (Etc.):

Legal & Management

Open source?

IP management (who owns any art and software created by users):

Privacy (tools for protecting personal data, rules on collecting information about behavior in the site):

Management of cash assets:

• Does it manage micro-payments?

• Conversion of virtual cash to real cash:

Management of abusive behavior:

Access

• Entry (are fees charged, personal information required?):

• Ability to control access to specific sites (are there different levels of permission for visitors, authors, etc.?):

Age restrictions:

Rules for blocking access to disruptive participants:

Functionality

Graphics quality (polygons/page, frames/sec., latency for complex scenes, etc.):

Complexity of objects:

• AI characters (human and otherwise):

• Equipment (vehicles, laboratory equipment, etc.):

• Buildings and landscapes:

• Ability to support complex 3D structures such as a virtual human body:

• Physics-based?

Quality of interface tools (how easy is it to navigate, pick up and rotate objects, operate equipment?):

Ease of authoring (quality of graphics authoring, ease of writing scripts for AI):

Number of users and/or animated characters per scene (measure of speed vs. complexity?):

Reliability (crash resistance):

Stability (how often is the system patched/upgraded, are major changes planned, are user assets stranded when upgrades occur, is the system likely to be rendered obsolete by new operating systems, etc.):

Scalability: Can it be expanded to large numbers of users, how does it handle dynamic load balancing?

Compatibility -- what kinds of user machines can be used (multiplatform?, connection requirements, works through firewalls?):

Multiple instances: If a virtual site is created (e.g., a city) can separate instances be created for each user community or do all groups have to share the same instance?

Search capability (in-world):

Security: protection against hacking, identity theft, theft of IP assets:

Ease of input/output:

• Conversion to and from standard CAD:

• Ease of linking external simulations to the virtual world displayed in the system (e.g. can AI for characters be provided through an external system?):

Technical

Engine/languages used:

Dynamic load balancing:

Messaging protocols:

Multiple threading: