Agent-Based Search and Retrieval in Virtual World Environments

Virtual world and other 3D Web content has been treated as a separate domain from the traditional 2D Web, but is increasingly being integrated with broader web content. However, search engines do not have the ability to crawl virtual world content directly, making it difficult for users to find relevant content. We present an intelligent agent crawler designed to collect user-generated content in the Second Life and related virtual worlds. The agents navigate autonomously through the world to discover regions, parcels of land within regions, user-created objects, and other users. The agents also interact with objects through movement or ‘touch’ to trigger scripts that present dynamic content in the form of note cards, chat text, landmark links, and web URLs. The collection service includes a focused HTML crawler for collecting linked web content. The experiments we performed are the first which focus on the content of a large virtual world. Our results show that virtual worlds can be effectively crawled using autonomous agent crawlers that emulate normal user behavior. Additionally, we find that the collection of interactive content enhances our ability to identify dynamic, immersive environments within the world.