[Paper Review] Metaverse for Social Good: A University Campus Prototype

Haihan Duan, Jiaye Li+4 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Aug 20, 2021

Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts17 references150 citations

TL;DR

The paper proposes a three-layer metaverse architecture (infrastructure, interaction, ecosystem), reviews social-good applications, and demonstrates a blockchain-driven CUHKSZ campus prototype with UGC and token/DAO features.

ABSTRACT

In recent years, the metaverse has attracted enormous attention from around the world with the development of related technologies. The expected metaverse should be a realistic society with more direct and physical interactions, while the concepts of race, gender, and even physical disability would be weakened, which would be highly beneficial for society. However, the development of metaverse is still in its infancy, with great potential for improvement. Regarding metaverse's huge potential, industry has already come forward with advance preparation, accompanied by feverish investment, but there are few discussions about metaverse in academia to scientifically guide its development. In this paper, we highlight the representative applications for social good. Then we propose a three-layer metaverse architecture from a macro perspective, containing infrastructure, interaction, and ecosystem. Moreover, we journey toward both a historical and novel metaverse with a detailed timeline and table of specific attributes. Lastly, we illustrate our implemented blockchain-driven metaverse prototype of a university campus and discuss the prototype design and insights.

Motivation & Objective

• Motivate the study of metaverse development with a focus on social good across accessibility, diversity, equality, and humanity.
• Propose a macro three-layer architecture (infrastructure, interaction, ecosystem) and discuss its components and research questions.
• Review representative metaverse applications and their attributes beyond earlier surveys.
• Demonstrate a blockchain-driven campus metaverse prototype and outline design choices and insights.

Proposed method

• Propose a three-layer metaverse architecture and map key components to infrastructure, interaction, and ecosystem.
• Survey existing metaverse applications and extract attributes such as blockchain, VR/AR, digital twins, UGC, economics, and AI.
• Describe the CUHKSZ Metaverse prototype built on Unity with Blender models and FISCO-BCOS consortium blockchain.
• Describe the Metaverse Viewer interface with first-/third-person perspectives and cross-platform deployment.
• Implement location-based sensing and an AI-assisted UGC editor to enable user-generated content creation.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 What is a macro, three-layer architecture for the metaverse and what research questions arise within each layer?
• RQ2 How can blockchain, UGC, and AI be integrated to support a social-good metaverse on a university campus?
• RQ3 What are practical design considerations and insights from a blockchain-driven campus metaverse prototype?
• RQ4 How can immersive interaction and digital twins be leveraged to connect physical campus activities with a virtual world?

Key findings

• A three-layer architecture (infrastructure, interaction, ecosystem) is proposed to organize metaverse components and open research questions.
• Blockchain-enabled decentralized ecosystems, NFTs, and DeFi concepts are identified as crucial for sustainable metaverse economics.
• A blockchain-driven campus prototype (CUHKSZ Metaverse) demonstrates cross-platform access, smart contracts, DAO governance, and location-based incentives.
• An easy-to-use AI-assisted UGC editor and voxel-based content creation workflow are developed to lower barriers for users.
• The prototype integrates smartphone-based sensing for interaction and token-based incentives to encourage on-campus engagement.