Piecing together the magic mirror : a software framework to support distributed, interactive applications

Abstract

Developing applications for distributed platforms can be very difficult and complex. We have developed a software framework to support distributed, interactive, collaborative applications that run on collections of self-organizing, autonomous computational units. We have included modules to aid application programmers with the exchange of messages, development of fault tolerance, and the aggregation of sensor data from multiple sources. We have assumed a mesh network style of computing, where there is no shared clock, no shared memory, and no central point of control. We have built a distributed user input system, and a distributed simulation application based on the framework. We have demonstrated the viability of our application by testing it with users.