KR100617326B1 - Device and method for packet transmission in client-server based networked virtual environment - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a recording medium recording a server device, a method and a program for efficiently transmitting a packet to a client in a client-server based network virtual environment. According to the present invention, a client in a region of interest in a network virtual environment in which a large user participates. By integrating and sending packets using a timer, the server can reduce the load on the server and make efficient use of bandwidth.

Client-server based, network virtual environment, packet transmission, packet integration, area of interest, large user online game

Description

Device and method for packet transmission in client-server based network virtual environment {Device and method for packet transmission in client-server based networked virtual environment}

1A is a block diagram illustrating a typical client-server based system for implementing a network virtual environment.

1B is a block diagram illustrating a region of interest in a network virtual environment;

FIG. 2 is a flowchart sequentially illustrating an operation of a general server apparatus for performing packet transmission to a client in the ROI; FIG.

3 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of a general server apparatus for performing packet transmission to a client in the ROI;

4 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a server apparatus according to the present invention;

5 is a flowchart sequentially illustrating a process of performing a packet transmission method according to the present invention;

6 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of a server apparatus for performing packet transmission to a client in a region of interest according to the present invention;

7A to 7C are diagrams for comparing network traffic when a server apparatus transmits a packet according to a general method and a method according to the present invention when clients located in the same ROI simultaneously send status information to a server. to be.

The present invention is an efficient packet transmission method in a client-server based network virtual environment, and an efficient packet transmission method between a client and a server through a region of interest management in a network virtual environment in which a large user participates, such as Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG). In this regard, the purpose of the present invention is to make packet transmission by general area of interest management more efficient.

A networked virtual environment is a virtual world simulated by a computer based on data distributed over a network. In reality, even remote clients can interact with each other in real time in a virtual environment built over a network. These technologies are applied to various fields such as military simulation, co-design, cyber education, etc. In particular, 3D online game users have exploded in recent years and various researches and developments have been made.

In order to implement a virtual environment with many users, such as 3D online games, one server needs to process processes for hundreds or thousands of clients. Therefore, it is required to solve excessive network and system loads. Representatives of these are dead reckoning algorithms and area of interest management.

In general, the server continuously sends periodic or aperiodic sampling of status update information about each object (avatar) in the virtual environment to clients. Clients receive this information and update the state information for each object and show it to the user. Therefore, the client does not know the state information of each object continuously but only sees the sampled values at regular intervals or discontinuously.

However, in the dead reckoning algorithm, the clients make predictions based on the state value and the rate of change from the state information of the object until the new state information is received. Then when new status information comes in, it is updated and predicted again. The server sends the status update information only when the difference between the actual state value of the object and the predicted state value on the client (the difference between the actual value and the predicted value) is greater than or equal to the threshold value. In other words, as the threshold is lower, the amount of state information to be transmitted increases, thereby increasing network traffic.

On the other hand, in the area of interest management, the status update information for an object is sent only to clients in a certain area (area of interest) that contains it. However, in the case of general area of interest management, the packet is sent to clients of all objects in the area of interest whenever the state of an object changes. Therefore, when the objects are concentrated in a specific area of interest, the server is heavily loaded. Will take. That is, when a large number of users are gathered in the region of interest, if the status information of each object is updated at the same time, the server should send updated status information of each object to all clients in the region of interest. Since I / O processing and network processing must be performed as many as the number of clients, the server system may be overloaded, resulting in packet delay and packet loss. In addition, there is a problem in the conventional transmission method through the management of the ROI, regardless of the size of the network, to provide a high quality service without considering the bandwidth of the client.

The present invention for solving the above problems, the object updated in order to more efficiently transmit a packet for the status update information sent to each object through the ROI management in the network virtual environment implemented as a server-client based system It is an object of the present invention to provide a recording medium recording a server device and method for integrating and transmitting the status information of each client to a client and a program for performing the method.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a server apparatus for transmitting a packet to a client based on a region of interest in a network virtual environment implemented as a server-client based system, the new state being received from the clients. A state information storage unit for storing information; An update instruction statement storage unit for storing, for each client, an update instruction statement for transmitting the new state information to each client existing in the ROI of the client that has transmitted the new state information; A timing signal generator for generating a timing signal informing that it is timing to generate a packet; A packet integrating unit configured to generate and update a state update information packet by extracting and integrating state information accumulated after a previous timing signal generation from the state information database in response to the timing signal; And a controller for determining the client to be received based on the ROI for each state information, and transmitting the state update packet to the determined client.

In addition, the present invention for achieving the above object, in the method for transmitting a packet to the client based on the region of interest in the network virtual environment implemented in a server-client based system, receiving the status information from the client step; A region of interest determination step of determining a client existing in the region of interest of the client that has transmitted the status information; An update command storing step of generating respective update command statements for transmitting the status information to all of the client receiving target status information, which is the client determined in the ROI determination step; A packet generation step of generating a state update information packet by integrating state information accumulated after generation of a previous timing signal according to an update instruction stored for each client, when a timing signal indicating a timing for generating a packet is generated; And a packet transmission step of transmitting the status update information packet to all of the receiving target clients specified in the update command.

In addition, the present invention for achieving the above object, in the recording medium recording a program for transmitting a packet to the client based on the region of interest in the network virtual environment implemented in a server-client based system, the state from the client A region of interest determination step of determining a client present in the region of interest of the client that has transmitted the status information when the information is received; An update command storing step of generating respective update command statements for transmitting the state information to all of the target state receiving target clients, the client determined in the ROI determination step; A packet generation step of generating a state update information packet by integrating state information accumulated after generation of a previous timing signal according to an update instruction stored for each client, when a timing signal indicating a timing for generating a packet is generated; And a packet transmission step of transmitting the state update information packet to all of the receiving target clients specified in the update command.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1A is a block diagram illustrating a general client-server based system for implementing a network virtual environment, and FIG. 1B is a block diagram illustrating a region of interest in a network virtual environment. 1A and 1B, client computers 110, 120, 130, 140, and 150 are connected to server computers through a network, and they are represented as virtual objects 111, 121, 131, 141, and 151 in a virtual environment, respectively. The ROI represented by the circle is the ROI of the object of the client 1110, and when an event such as an object movement or state change occurs, the new ROI is transmitted to all clients in the ROI through the server. Each object has its own region of interest, and unnecessary packet transmission can be reduced by not sending status information to clients with objects outside the region of interest, ie, objects that do not belong to the region of interest. That is, in the region of interest 111 of the object 111 of the client 1110, the objects 121, 131, 151 of the clients 2, 3, and 5 are located, and the object 141 of the client 4 140 is the client 1 object 111. Since it is outside the region of interest, the state information packet is transmitted only to the clients 2, 3, and 5 (120, 130, 150) and not to the client 4 (140).

2 is a flowchart sequentially illustrating an operation of a general server apparatus that performs packet transmission to a client in the ROI. When the server receives the state information packet from the client where the state change event has occurred (S210), the server examines the region of interest centered on the object of the client where the event has occurred and determines whether there are objects of other clients located in the region of interest (S220). After inputting a transmission message event to be sent to clients in the region of interest in the network queue (S230), the packet is transmitted to all clients corresponding to the region of interest (S240).

3 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of a general server apparatus that performs packet transmission to a client in the ROI. When the server receives the status information packet from the client (S310), it generates a status event (S320) and puts it in the event queue (S330). Based on the status events accumulated in the event queue, the server examines the region of interest of the client that sent the status information packet (S340), and generates a status message event to send the packet to each client in the region of interest (S350). After putting the packet in the queue (S360), the packet is transmitted to the corresponding clients (S370).

4 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a server apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown, the server apparatus includes a controller 410, an input / output unit 420, an ROI database 430, a state information storage unit 440, a packet integrator 450, a timing signal generator 460, and an update. The statement storage unit 470 is configured. The input / output unit 420 is a means for transmitting and receiving data packets with clients. The input / output unit 420 should be interpreted in a broad sense to encompass all kinds of interfaces capable of data communication, and may be implemented as a wired or wireless interface. The state information storage unit 440 is a means for storing state information when the state information is received from the client through the input / output unit 420, and transmits data related to the received state information to the controller 410. The controller 101 determines a client to receive the status information packet to which the status update information packet should be transmitted for each status information based on the received data, requests the update command storage unit 470 to generate an update command, and updates the status. The overall operation of the server apparatus is controlled by transmitting the information packet to the receiving target client regarding the state information through the input / output unit 420. The ROI database 430 is a means for storing ROI information for all clients managed by the server device. If the size of the region of interest is the same for all clients, the region of interest database 430 may be omitted. However, the operator of the server device may vary the region of interest information by member or by the characteristics of each object. In such a case, the inverse region of interest of each object should be considered when transmitting a packet according to the change of the client's state. The ROI information may be stored in the ROI database 430. In this case, the controller 410 should refer to the region of interest database 430 when determining the receiving target client. Meanwhile, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the ROI database 103 and the state information storage unit 104 may be implemented in one configuration instead of separate configurations.

The update statement storage unit 107 is a means for generating and storing a client-specific update statement queue composed of update statements for transmitting the new status information to all clients existing in the ROI of the client that has transmitted the new status information. . Although it is common to store update commands in a queue for transmission in the order of receiving the status information, it is not necessary to limit the storage method to the queue. However, in the following embodiment, it is stored as a queue.

The timing signal generator 460 is a means for generating a timing signal informing that the timing signal generation unit 460 integrates the state information accumulated and stored in the state information storage unit 440 for generation of a state update information packet. The timing signal is periodically generated at a predetermined time interval, which may be variably set by the server apparatus operator. That is, the size of the packet can be adjusted by setting this time interval, so that the operator of the server device can flexibly respond to the various situations of the network. When the packet integrator 450 receives the timing signal generated by the timing signal generator 460, the packet integrator 450 extracts the state information accumulated since the previous timing signal is generated from the state information storage unit 440 according to the update instruction stored for each client. And aggregate to generate a status update packet.

5 is a flowchart sequentially illustrating a process of performing a packet transmission method according to the present invention. When the server device receives the status information packet from the client (S510), after searching for the clients in the ROI through the ROI inspection of the corresponding object (S520), an update statement for each object is generated (S530). For example, in the case of FIG. 1, the statement queues for the objects 121, 131, and 151 of all the clients 120, 130, and 150 in the ROI are updated according to the status information packet of the object 111 of the client 1 110, respectively. The statement is put (S540). This series of processes continues until a timer occurs. When the timer generates a timing signal (S550), the server generates and aggregates packets according to update statements accumulated in the statement queue (S560), and transmits the aggregated packet to all clients corresponding to the ROI (S570). .

6 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of a server apparatus that performs packet transmission to a client in a region of interest according to the present invention. When receiving the status information packet from the client (S610), the server generates a status event (S620) and put it in the event queue (S630). Based on the state events accumulated in the event queue, the server device checks the region of interest of the client (S640), and generates an update statement for transmitting the received state information to the clients in the region of interest (S650). Input to the queue (S660). When the timing signal is generated, the packet is generated and merged according to the update statements accumulated in the statement queue (S680), and the state update information packet is transmitted to the corresponding clients. At this time, in order to prevent the delay of the packet, the generation period of the timing signal is preferably in the unit of tens to hundreds of msec.

7A to 7C are diagrams for comparing network load when a server apparatus transmits a packet according to a general method and a method according to the present invention when all clients located in the same ROI send new status information to the server. Drawing. Here, unlike in FIG. 1, it is assumed that objects of clients 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 (710, 720, 730, 740, 750) all exist within the same ROI.

Referring to FIG. 7A, clients 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 (710, 720, 730, 740, 750) whose objects are all within the same ROI transmit a status information packet to the server apparatus 700. In this case, as shown in FIG. 7B, in the case of the server apparatus 760 using general ROI, each packet is processed and transmitted to all clients in the ROI. For example, if the client 1 710 transmits a status information packet of '1' to the server device 760, the server transmits to all the clients in the ROI (in this case, the clients 720, 730, 740, 750), and the client 2 ( Similarly, when 720 transmits a status information packet of '2' to the server device 760, the server device 760 transmits the same to the clients 710, 730, 740 and 750 in the ROI.

However, as shown in FIG. 7C, when the server apparatus 770 periodically integrates and transmits the packet using the timing signal generator 460 according to the present invention, as shown in FIG. It is possible to transmit packets efficiently while reducing the cost. This is shortened to n times by using the method according to the present invention, whereas in general, n (n-1) packet transmissions are required when the packet needs to be transmitted to n clients from the server's point of view.

The invention can also be embodied as computer readable code on a computer readable recording medium. The computer-readable recording medium includes all kinds of recording devices in which data that can be read by a computer system is stored. Examples of computer-readable recording media include ROM, RAM, CD-ROM, magnetic tape, floppy disk, optical data storage, and the like, which are also implemented in the form of a carrier wave (for example, transmission over the Internet). It also includes. In addition, the computer-readable recording medium may be distributed in a networked computer system and executed in a distributed server environment. In this case, a network virtual environment may be improved by distributing network traffic by a plurality of servers. will be.

With reference to the drawings the best embodiments of the present invention have been disclosed. Some specific terms used above are merely intended to describe the present invention, but are not used to limit the scope of the present invention as defined in the meaning or claims. Therefore, those skilled in the art should understand that various modifications and equivalent other embodiments are possible from this.

As described above, the present invention reduces the number of transmissions from the server device through packet integration and timer when updating the state information of each object through the ROI management in a client-server based network virtual environment. By reducing network traffic, it is possible to provide services to more clients with server devices having the same performance as before. Also, by adjusting the timing signal generation period by the timer, the server can variably set the amount of packets to be sent to the client, allowing the packet transmission considering the client's bandwidth.

Claims (8)

A server apparatus for transmitting a packet to a client based on a region of interest in a network virtual environment implemented as a server-client based system, A state information storage unit for storing new state information received from the clients; An update instruction statement storage unit for storing, for each client, an update instruction statement for transmitting the new state information to each client existing in the ROI of the client that has transmitted the new state information; A timing signal generator for generating a timing signal informing that it is timing to generate a packet; A packet integrating unit configured to generate and update a state update information packet by extracting and integrating state information accumulated after a previous timing signal generation from the state information database in response to the timing signal; And And a control unit for determining the client to be received based on the ROI for each state information, and transmitting the state update information packet to the determined client. The method of claim 1, And a region of interest database storing information about regions of interest of all clients managed by the server apparatus. The method of claim 1, And the timing signal generator generates the timing signal periodically over a predetermined time period. The method of claim 3, And a time interval required for the timing signal generator to periodically generate a timing signal may be variably set by an external input. A method for transmitting a packet to a client based on a region of interest in a network virtual environment implemented as a server-client based system, A receiving step of receiving status information from a client; A region of interest determination step of determining a client existing in the region of interest of the client that has transmitted the status information; An update command storing step of generating respective update command statements for transmitting the status information to all of the client receiving target status information, which is the client determined in the ROI determination step; A packet generation step of generating a state update information packet by integrating state information accumulated after generation of a previous timing signal according to an update instruction stored for each client, when a timing signal indicating a timing for generating a packet is generated; And And transmitting the status update information packet to all of the receiving target clients specified in the update command. The method of claim 5, The timing signal is a method for transmitting a packet to a client, characterized in that is generated periodically over a predetermined time. The method of claim 6, And a time interval required for periodically generating the timing signal may be variably set by an external input. A recording medium in which a program for transmitting a packet to a client based on a region of interest in a network virtual environment implemented as a server-client based system is recorded. A region of interest determination step of determining a client existing in the region of interest of the client that has transmitted the status information when the state information is received from the client; An update command storing step of generating respective update command statements for transmitting the state information to all of the target state receiving target clients, the client determined in the ROI determination step; A packet generation step of generating a state update information packet by integrating state information accumulated after generation of a previous timing signal according to an update instruction stored for each client, when a timing signal indicating a timing for generating a packet is generated; And And a packet transmitting step of transmitting the status update information packet to all of the receiving target clients specified in the update command.

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