ImmersaView Launcher is an application that allows a user to run ImmersaView remotely from any computer and transfer the appropriate files from the ImmersaView Launcher computer to the computer running ImmersaView.  More importantly, when ImmersaView Launcher is used in conjunction with the Access Grid Toolkit, it allows people to collaboratively choose what 3-D model to view with ImmersaView and have all participants have their local ImmersaView session simultaneously start and stop.

This program was developed as a shared application for the current version of the Access Grid.  It provides a minimal graphical user interface primarily for determining the filename of what 3-D model to view in this collaborative session in addition to specifying what files in what directories should be transferred from the computer running the Access Grid venue client software to the computer running ImmersaView.  Additionally, there is a configuration file that you can manually edit that allows directory paths to be persistent for repeated uses.

ImmersaView Launcher has the following system requirements:

• The computer running ImmersaView Launcher must have the Access Grid Toolkit installed along with its required software.

• The ImmersaView computer must have at least Python 2.3 installed.

Warning: It should be noted that the communication mechanism between the computer running ImmersaView Launcher and the computer running ImmersaView uses XML-RPC.  The procedures written using XML-RPC do pose a security threat to people who are aware of the connection ports and function names used for by the XML-RPC server software.  Please exercise due caution by only the XML-RPC server on the computer running ImmersaView when you are in a session.  This software is still a prototype, and XML-RPC was used in order to prove the concept of the ImmersaView design.

The design for ImmersaView Launcher is based on a more general concept for creating a program that establishes a collaborative session for deciding what parameters to launch a program with.  These parameters are propagated to each site's local machine.  From there, these parameters are sent to the computer running the software to be launched.  Therefore, all sites participating in this collaborative session can start running a program with the same settings.

At this time, ImmersaView Launcher is being fixed up for distribution.  A download link for the program will appear at some point when this distribution is ready.

Relevant Links

• Download ImmersaView Launcher 1.18 (zip file)-- used for SC Global 2004, works on Access Grid Toolkit 2.3. Changes: Proper spelling of ImmersaView, fixed sudden stopping of ImmersaView Server with ImmersaView Launcher.
• Download ImmersaView Launcher 1.15 (zip file)-- works on Access Grid Toolkit 2.3
• Download ImmersaView Launcher 1.0 (zip file)-- works on at least Access Grid Toolkit 2.1.x
• Paper: "Shared Application Launcher for the Access Grid 2" (Word Document)
• Download Immersaview
• Download the Access Grid Toolkit
• Download Python from ActiveState
• Questions, Comments, Discussions

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