Development of a web-based distributed interactive simulation (DIS) environment using javascript

Abstract

This thesis investigated the current infrastructure for web-based simulations using the DIS network protocol. The main technologies studied were WebSockets, WebRTC and WebGL. This thesis sought readily available means to establish networks for interchanging DIS message (PDUs), so the WebSocket gateway server from Open-DIS project was used to construct a Client-Server structure and PeerJS API was used to construct a peer-to-peer structure. WebGL was used to create a scene and render 3D models in browsers. A first-person-shooter tank game was used as a test application with both WebSocket and WebRTC infrastructures. Experiments in this thesis included measuring the rate of sending and receiving DIS packets and analysis of the tank game by profiling tools. All the experiments were run on Chrome and Firefox browsers in a closed network. The experimental results showed that both WebSocket and WebRTC infrastructures were competent enough to support web-based DIS simulation. The results also found the significant differences of performance between Chrome and Firefox. Currently, the best performance is provided by the combination of Firefox using the WebRTC framework. The analysis of the tank game showed that most of the browser’s computational resources were spent on the WebGL graphics, with only a small percentage of the resources expended on exchanging DIS packets.