Section: Software

OpenMASK: Open-Source platform for Virtual Reality

Participants : Alain Chauffaut [contact] , Ronan Gaugne [contact] , Georges Dumont, Thierry Duval, Laurent Aguerreche, Florian Nouviale.

OpenMASK (Open Modular Animation and Simulation Kit) is a federative platform for research developments in the VR4i team. Technology transfer is a significant goal of our team so this platform is available as OpenSource software (http://www.openmask.org ).

OpenMASK is a C++ software platform for the development and execution of modular applications in the fields of animation, simulation and virtual reality. The main unit of modularity is the simulated object (OSO) which can be viewed as frequential or reactive motors. It can be used to describe the behavior or motion control of a virtual object as well as input devices control like haptic interfaces. Two OSO communicate with synchronous data flows or with asynchronous events.

We provide Model Driven Tools to help building OpenMASK applications without tedious and repeated coding and to improve reusability. Within Eclipse environment we offer an editor and a C++ code generator to design and build objects classes. The current OpenMASK 4.2 release is now based on MPI for distribution service, Ogre3D for visualisation service. One can benefit of new interaction tools for local or remote collaborative applications.