computer science

Open Cobalt

Open Cobalt is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Open Cobalt rather than just read about it. In short: Open Cobalt is a free and open-source software platform for constructing, accessing, and sharing virtual worlds both on local area networks or across the Internet, with no need for centralized servers. The technology makes it easy to create deeply collaborative and hyperlinked multi-user virtual workspaces, virtual exhibit spaces, and game-based learning and training environments that run on all major software opera…

Key takeaways

Open Cobalt belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Open Cobalt to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Open Cobalt from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Open Cobalt is a free and open-source software platform for constructing, accessing, and sharing virtual worlds both on local area networks or across the Internet, with no need for centralized servers. The technology makes it easy to create deeply collaborative and hyperlinked multi-user virtual workspaces, virtual exhibit spaces, and game-based learning and training environments that run on all major software operating systems. By using a peer-to-peer-based message passing protocol to reduce reliance on server infrastructures for support of basic in-world interactions across many participants, Open Cobalt makes it possible for people to hyperlink their virtual worlds via 3D portals to form a large distributed network of interconnected collaboration spaces. It also makes it possible for schools and other organizations to freely set up their own networks of public and private 3D virtual workspaces that feature integrated web browsing, voice chat, text chat, and access to remote desktop applications and services. Open Cobalt uses the Squeak software environment, which is an open-source Smalltalk system freely available for Windows, Mac and Unix. As is true of almost any Smalltalk application, Open Cobalt has identical functioning on any supported platform. As a Smalltalk system, it can usually be updated while the system is running without needing a restart.

Expected uses Open Cobalt is designed to enable the deployment of secure virtual world spaces that support education, research, and the activities of virtual organizations. By leveraging OpenGL-based 3D graphics, Open Cobalt supports highly scalable collaborative data visualization, virtual learning and problem solving environments, 3D wikis, online gaming environments termed Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), and privately and securely maintained multi-user virtual environments. The Open Cobalt application leverages peer-based messaging to eliminate the need for virtual world servers/commercial services and makes it very simple for end-users to create and securely share deeply collaborative virtual worlds that run on all major software operating systems. Users moving through and interacting within Open Cobalt worlds simultaneously participate and collaborate in a dynamic, concurrent environment where they can work, explore, and learn at a level of integration and extensibility not easily achieved through commercial virtual world technologies. With no licensing fees, users and developers can also freely build and share highly capable multi-user virtual workspaces, game-based learning and training environments, or even just create places to meet and interact with friends.

History

Open Cobalt is derived from the Croquet software development kit (SDK) that was publicly released under the MIT License by Hewlett-Packard and the Croquet Consortium in early 2007. In early 2008, and with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Julian Lombardi and Mark P. McCahill, at Duke University, launched the community-based software development effort to build Open Cobalt as an open-source virtual world browser application and construction toolkit. In May 2008, Lombardi was awarded a National Science Foundation grant to further strengthen the community-based software development effort and bring the Open Cobalt virtual world browser to its alpha release. Together with John Dougan as technical project lead and a growing international community of software developers and volunteers, the Open Cobalt project contributors released Open Cobalt Alpha in April 2010. OpenCobalt 1.0 alpha 22 was released in June 2015. Recent activity involving the project can be found in the Open Cobalt Google Group.

Goals The goals of the Open Cobalt effort are to stimulate the use of distributed virtual environments, advance visual simulations, and deepen collaboration in education, research, and personal entertainment - and in so doing to:

stimulate the development and dissemination of shared cyberenvironments for the staging, observation and evaluation of collaborative decision-making, problem finding, and problem solving among members of distributed virtual organizations and educational communities, and create the conditions for the emergence of a free, open, and scalable 3D-enabled global information space.

Features Open Cobalt is both an end-user application and full featured software development environment for creating a rich network of end-user created interlinked virtual worlds. It is more extensible than the proprietary technologies behind collaborative worlds such as Second Life, and before that ViOS. This is because:

It is free (there are no fees for its use or distribution) The entire system is open-source (it is licensed under the MIT free software license) It does not need the use of servers to create and share virtual worlds (since it is based on a peer-to-peer synchronization architecture/messaging protocol) It is platform and device independent (because it is a virtual machine-based technology that runs on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux) It provides a complete professional programmer's language (Smalltalk/Squeak, IDE, and class library in every distributed, running participant's copy (with the programming environment itself being simultaneously shareable and extensible) It is based on Squeak's late-binding architecture and metaprogramming facilities (that allow for efficient handling of media) Users/developers within virtual worlds may freely access, modify and view the source code of the entire system (they can access running code from in-world) Users/developers can import 3D content directly into their worlds (Google 3D Warehouse content (.kmz) and content in other formats can be drag-and-dropped directly into Open Cobalt worlds) Users/developers can import a variety of media content directly into their worlds (Open Cobalt worlds support audio and mpeg media content) Its software code can be updated/changed while the system is live (making it possible to program worlds from within worlds while they are running) It is not hosted on a single organization's server (and hence not governed by any such organization)

3D hyperlinking

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Open Cobalt user interface and avatar-enabled virtual environment containing .kmz mesh content imported from Google's 3D Warehouse. Users are able to provision content to Open Cobalt spaces that can be developed and managed using third-party tools and resources.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Open Cobalt

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Open Cobalt claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Open Cobalt before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Open Cobalt ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Open Cobalt

In research: Open Cobalt appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Open Cobalt in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Open Cobalt is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 3D scenegraph APIs, Alpha software, Cross-platform free software, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Open Cobalt outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Open Cobalt in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Open Cobalt means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Open Cobalt out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Open Cobalt in simple terms?

Why does Open Cobalt matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Open Cobalt?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Open Cobalt.