For the first time, we re able to build agents that are truly independent, able to interact with each other dynamically, responding to each other and to human participants in simulated environments, he explained. This has important implications for the future of virtual reality as a training and educational tool, he added. Intelligent agents are often used to populate scenarios, such as natural disasters, battlefields , or classrooms , where people need to learn how to interact with both the static aspects of the environment and those that are active, like animals, people, and cars. Each active element can thus be given cognitive abilities, such as the ability to choose among a number of goals, as well as physical abilities that allow it to manipulate aspects of the virtual world they inhabit.
Intelligent agents can also communicate with each other.
With truly dynamic agents, these scenarios achieve new levels of complexity. While human participants move within a virtual world, their interactions with agents, as well as the constantly occurring interactions between agents, continuously alter the terrain. Argus VR intends to develop this technology into a toolset to help other virtual world builders add intelligent agents to their existing simulations, stated Mr. Gifford at the announcement today. We want to bring virtual environments closer to reality.