Semantic 3D

Semantics for Interactive 3D Content 


Semantic 3D is a long-term research project performed at the Department of Information Technology and the VR Lab at the Poznań University of Economics and Business. The project aims at the development of new scientific solutions in the domain of distributed systems based on 3D interactive VR/AR content and services. 

To stimulate creation of VR/AR applications, it is necessary to develop techniques that enable social co-creation of content and services by a large groups of „prosumers” (users-producers), and to facilitate access to VR/AR content and services anytime and anywhere – as it is now the case of standard web pages. However, creation, searching and composition of distributed three-dimensional interactive VR/AR content and services is much more complex than classic two-dimensional web pages. This is due to the fact that relationships between components of an interactive three-dimensional virtual scene may include, in addition to its meaning and form of presentation, also spatial, temporal, structural, logical, and behavioral aspects. 

In this project, the above problem is approached by developing models and methods based on the Semantic Web approach. Semantic descriptions of individual components and relationships among them permit to develop more advanced methods of creating and co-creating, searching, composing, configuring, presenting and securing VR/AR content and services, due to the fact that applications may “understand” the meaning of content and services.

About the project 


The main objective of the project is to develop universal models and methods that enable the use of semantic techniques to describe VR/AR content and services. In particular, the project targets:
  • automatic configuration of 3D scenes and interactive VR/AR applications based on semantically described distributed heterogeneous content and services, user privileges and preferences, and the context of use, which consists of such elements as location (either in the real or the virtual space), time (real or virtual) and the capabilities of access devices;
  • automatic searching of 3D content and services which – in a specific context – are available to users with specific preferences and privileges;
  • automatic generation of content exploration graphs (for content presentation) based on a semantic network of relationships among nodes representing content and services, and dynamically changing user requirements and context;
  • collaborative social creation of AR/VR content and services;
  • imposing security in distributed collaborative VR/AR environments, including such aspects as confidentiality and integrity of content, authenticity of the descriptions of interactions, and protecting user’s privacy.

For more information, please visit project site semantic3d.org.