Components to simplify the development of Virtual Reality Web applications

Abstract

Virtual Reality (VR) has expanded its applications thanks to the web platform and more devices. VR, more than just advanced visualization, is a powerful tool linked to computational modeling and simulation, intuitive and engaging for interacting with and visualizing complex systems across various industries and sciences. The web platform even enables distributed simulation with separate, network-synchronized visualization and simulation. During the development of multiple web VR applications, a gap is often observed between the capabilities provided by libraries and the basic mechanisms needed in a typical application. Therefore, this paper proposes a set of high-level software components to facilitate the creation of web VR applications. The proposed solution focuses on addressing common challenges faced by developers, such as: XR controller management (event handling, 3D representation, laterality identification, Raycasting for surface intersection detection, etc.), the creation of dynamic user interfaces (menus), scene navigation (teleportation and flight mode), the selection and manipulation of virtual objects, and the provision of debugging tools. Thus, reusable, open-source classes and modules are proposed and made available online. A set of didactic examples is also presented to provide a functional evaluation of the modules, validate the components, and offer practical starting points for the development of web-based VR applications.