... a virtual community

Virtual Venues

We are releasing an early alpha of support for multiple Virtual Venues in the Access Grid. The software has components that run on the Display, Video, and Audio machines, as well as a central server.

Installation

The Display software is packaged as a self-extracting zip file, and the Video and Audio software is a set of Linux RPMs.

Display computer

Download the Virtual Venue software from the software download page. Extract the zip, installing into the default location of c:\agapps. Important: At this stage in the life of this software, it must be installed in this location. It will break badly if it is installed elsewhere.

Audio and Video computers

Download the RPM update script from the software download page. Run the script. This should install the virtual venue software and the latest versions of the audio and video tools. The same software can be installed on both the audio and video machines.

You might get a clash with a previously-installed jdk-1.2 rpm when the jdk-1.1.7 rpm installs. If this happens, erase jdk1.2 using

rpm -e jdk-1.2-1

and rerun the update.

Put /usr/local/ag/bin in your path.

After the software is installed, configure each of the audio and video machines with the name of the display machine:

set-display-machine display.host.name.domain

The video computer needs to be configured for the number & name of video capture cards it has, and with the node's name. To do this run

setup-config

This will create /usr/local/ag/lib/video-config, which vrm then reads.

Using the software

Again, as this is early release software, there are some inconveniences in the setup of the Virtual Venue software.

On the display machine, run c:\agapps\bin\start-eventserv.bat
After the event server monitor changes to "Ready", run c:\agapps\bin\drm
On the video machine, run vrm-eventlistener. If you get the error

Capture computer machine.name.domain not found in configuration file, exiting

you need to run setup-config.

On the audio machine, run arm-eventlistener
Back on the display machine, fire up a Netscape (I've had problems with Internet Explorer and registration of MIME types. If you try it and get it working let me know) and point it at http://venues.accessgrid.org/AG/ .
The first time in, follow the link to register for an account.
Enter your username and password, and click "Enter the access grid".
If the login is successful, click on "Enter the AG".
You should now see some information on some media channels, and get a popup about a MIME type that's not registered

Select Pick App, and choose c:\agapps\helpers\sdp.exe:

You will also get a message about the application/x-ag-mud filetype:

Choose c:\agapps\helpers\mud.exe:

You should now see a mud window come up, as well as a vic session on the display and capture computers, and a rat on the audio computer. Follow the exit links to move about the virtual space.