Interactive storytelling in virtual environment: educational system “Virtual Planetarium”

This paper is devoted to a new technology for construction of multimedia dynamic documents: interactive storytelling in virtual environment. This is a promising growth area of computer-based technologies which can be positioned at the interfaces between electronic document management systems, information systems, computer games, educational programs, virtual simulators, and interactive models. Basic terms and concepts of a new subject field are introduced; methods and technologies of interactive applications in virtual environment development are considered; principles of construction of interactive storytelling in virtual environment are described by the example of the educational system “Virtual Planetarium”.