| One of the challenges in virtual reality application is to completely integrate complicated spatial and textual information into an virtual environment. To solve the problem needs a specific information management system. In this document, the concept of virtual world database management systems and their general scope have been presented. Principles about virtual world databases are studied and a generic architectures, together with necessary software modules and query schemes are introduced. The hierarchical hypervoxel space (HHVS) which integrates spatial and textual information and supports widely used spatial queries is introduced as the kernel of our object-oriented generic architecture. The development of a virtual world database is a multi-discipline issue that covers techniques in relational database systems, spatial database systems, object-oriented database systems, multimedia database systems and artificial intelligence. In order to prove our principles about virtual world databases, we constructed a virtual brain system based on our generic architectures and software modules. Detailed architectures and related algorithms implemented in the virtual brain system are presented in the document. The concept of "virtual brain counseling" is also introduced which extend the benefit of virtual brain systems from medical education and training to clinical activities. We indicated that spatial queries contribute the majority of these benefits. Although our proof of concepts is only based on the virtual brain application, due to generality and complexity of the virtual brain system, this proof has much broader sense.; We have to admit that our currently existing studies for virtual world database management systems are still primitive. Our research work will continue to fully develop a general virtual world database management system, and expend our virtual brain system to a complete, complex, multi-aspect, full-functional and clinical convenient virtual brain system. We believe we just opened a new era for virtual reality, and computer assisted clinic applications. |
