From the good folks who brought you MPEG, a new initiative to create standards for virtual worlds.

MPEG, a working group in ISO/IEC, has produced many important standards (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MPEG-7, and MPEG-21). MPEG feels that it is important to standardize intermediate formats and protocols for “Information exchange with Virtual Worlds”, MPEG-V in the areas of “Interfaces between virtual worlds” and “Interfaces between virtual worlds and the physical world”.

According to their approved project, they’re looking to establish a working framework in 3 main areas:

· Part1: Architecture

· Part2: Interfaces between virtual worlds

· Part3: Interfaces between virtual worlds and the physical world

The first part (Part1: Architecture) will describe an overall architecture that can be instantiated for all the foreseeable combinations of virtual worlds and real world deployment.

The second part (Part2: Interfaces between virtual worlds) will allow for the interchange of characteristics between virtual worlds taking native formats and scalability into account.

The third part (Part3: Interfaces between virtual worlds and the physical world) will allow for the interfacing of sensors and actuators to the virtual world taking native formats into account.

Draft copy here.