Welcome to The Metatopia Project

Meme is a runtime for networked virtual worlds. It has been designed from the ground up to enable a multi-user universe on the Internet. Every netizen can have a virtual building containing any content imaginable.

There is a multi-user universe that comes with Meme. It's called Metatopia.

It features multiple virtual spaces, distributed objects, and fully-articulated avatars with multiple facial expressions. It is written in high-level Meme code.

Metatopia runs quite well on a Pentium-90 with a 28.8 modem.

The Metatopia Project is the name of the open-source effort. The goal of The Metatopia Project is to build an open and non-proprietary VR universe on the net that everyone can inhabit.

You can sign up for the metatopia-announce mailing list. Send mail to metatopia-announce-request@lists.sourceforge.net with the word "help" (don't include the quotes) in the subject or body.

Metatopia-announce is a low-bandwidth mailing list with announcements for those people interested in Meme and Metatopia.

You can get the binary of the Meme Development System (for Windows), along with the source for Metatopia, at http://metatopia.sourceforge.net/download/setup.exe (about 2 MB)

The above, plus the source code to the Meme Development System, is at http://metatopia.sourceforge.net/download/memedist.zip (about 10 MB)

For more info on Meme, go to www.immersive.com Follow the link near the top of the home page to the technical documents for a look at the Programming Guide.

Meme combines a scripting language interpreter with a 3D rendering engine.

Meme is small and fast, so it will run on just about any hardware, including game consoles, etc.

It compiles to an extremely compact form, which is important when sending objects over low-speed modems.

It has lightning-fast context switching. In a virtual world with several hundred objects, each with at least one thread, this becomes necessary. Meme's context switching is far faster than that of most operating systems.

Meme is written in plain-vanilla C, so it ports to any machine with an ANSI-compliant C compiler.

The source to Meme and Metatopia comes from three donors. Mitch Bradley of Firmworks (www.firmworks.com) donated the interpreter on which Meme is based. Marc de Groot of Immersive Systems, Inc. (www.immersive.com) worked on Meme for 20,000 hours to bring it to its current state. Master Zap (www.master-zap.com) implemented Metatopia, as well as a number of demos featured on the website.

In addition, Criterion Software (www.csl.com) have generously permitted The Metatopia Project to distribute RenderWare version 2 with Meme. RenderWare is a fast real-time 3D rendering engine.

Meme was one of the candidate technologies for VRML 1.0.

Meme is used in psychological research. Dr. Max North, formerly of Clark-Atlanta University, uses a Meme world to treat obsessive- compulsive disorder.

Dr. David Warner, of Syracuse University, has used Meme in his work with people with disabilities.

David Joffe, founder of Lexicor, is working with Meme to visualize EKG/EMG/EEG signals.

Marc de Groot, the architect and author of Meme, starting working with VR in 1990. He was a senior staff engineer at VPL Research, the first commercial VR company.

Marc was later the Chief Scientist at Ono-Sendai Corporation. Ono-Sendai's goal was to produce a networked VR consumer appliance. Meme was originally intended to be the operating system for that device.

The Metatopia Project needs your help. Please become a registered user of sourceforge.net (it's free) and come participate in The Metatopia Project. Don't miss the opportunity to be part of the next Internet revolution.

For more information, call (720) 304 7117 or post to one of the forums for The Metatopia Project at http://sourceforge.net