Contents
2 Scope and purpose of this MMM-TEC Call for Technologies.
Annex 3 – Data Formats and Attributesproposed by Respondent
Annex 4: Technologies that may require specific testing.
Annex 4 – Mandatory text in responses.
1 Introduction
In early 2022, Moving Picture, Audio, and Data Coding by Artificial Intelligence (MPAI) started analysing the prospects of metaverse standardisation and developing its MPAI Metaverse Model (MPAI-MMM). In 2023, it adopted and published the MPAI-MMM Functionalities [6] and Functionality Profiles [7] Technical Reports, and the MPAI-MMM Architecture (MMM-ARC) [8] Technical Specification.
This document concerns Technical Specification: MPAI-Metaverse Model (MPAI-MMM) – Technologies (MMM-TEC) that MPAI is planning to develop. In accordance with the process established by the MPAI Statutes [2] and the MPAI Patent Policy [3], with this document MPAI requests parties having rights to technologies satisfying the MMM-TEC Use Cases and Functional Requirements [9] and the MMM-TEC Framework Licence [10] to respond to this Call for Technologies preferably using the MMM-TEC Template for Responses [11].
MPAI [1] is an international unaffiliated non-profit organisation having the mission to develop standards for Artificial Intelligence-enabled data coding and technologies facilitating integration of data coding components into Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems.
2 Scope and purpose
MMM-ARC Technical Specification [8] specifies an Operation Model, four Functional Profiles, and a set of Functional Requirements for the four types of constituent elements of the MPAI Metaverse Model: Processes, Actions, Items, and Basic Data. Two Metaverse Instances implementing MMM-ARC – M-InstanceA and M-InstanceB – can interoperate if they:
- Support the MMM-ARC Operation Model.
- Use the same MMM-ARC Functional Profile, i.e., the same functional set of Actions, Items, and Data Types.
- Either use the same or independently adopted technologies while accessing Conversion Services that losslessly transform Data of an M-InstanceA to Data of an M-InstanceB.
With MPAI-TEC, MPAI intends to extend the scope of MPAI-MMM standardisation by developing a specification of JSON Syntax and Semantics of MMM-ARC Items that references a new specification to be called Data Types, Formats, and Attributes (MPAI-TFA) that will specify all referenced Data Formats of MPAI-MMM Items.
MPAI is issuing a parallel Call for Technologies: Connected Autonomous Vehicle (MPAI-CAV) – Technologies (CAV-TEC) that will similarly specify the JSON Syntax and Semantics of CAV-ARC Items (Data Types) and will reference the same MPAI-TFA Technical Specification. It should also be noted that other MPAI Technical specifications such as MPAI-CAE [12], MPAI-CUI [13], MPAI-MMC [14], MPAI-OSD [15], and MPAI-PAF [16] adopt a similar approach to the specification of their Data Types.
With this Call for Technologies MPAI is requesting:
- Comments, amendments, extensions, or replacements of Functional Requirements, Syntax, and Semantics of MPAI-MMM Items and Basic Data as specified in [9].
- Comments on and proposals for Data Formats and Attributes of MPAI-MMM Items.
MPAI intends to use the material in [9] and [13] and the responses to this Call for Technologies to publish the fourth part of the MPAI Metaverse Model standardisation project: Technical Specification: MPAI-Metaverse Model (MPAI-MMM) – Technologies (MMM-TEC).
3 How to respond
Those planning to respond to this Call are:
- Invited to attend the presentation of the Call to be held on 2024/05/31 at 16 UTC.
- Requested to communicate their intention to respond to this Call for Technologies by sending an initial version of the Annex 1 form to the MPAI secretariat (secretariat@mpai.community) by 2024/06/07. Submission of Annex 1 helps MPAI to properly plan for the review of submissions. However, a respondent is not required to send that Annex 1 by 2024/06/07 to make a submission and a response to this Call not preceded by the submission of Annex 1 will still be accepted.
- Encouraged to regularly visit the MPAI-MMM webpage where information related to this Call will be posted.
Table 2 – Dates and deadlines
| Step | Date | Time |
| Call for Technologies | 2023/05/15 | 17:00 UTC |
| Online presentation of the Call | 2023/05/31 | 16:00 UTC |
| Notification of intention to submit a proposal (Annex 1) | 2023/06/07 | 23.59 UTC |
| Submission deadline | 2023/07/06 | 23.59 UTC |
| Evaluation of responses will start | 2023/07/10 | (MPAI-46) |
Evaluation to be carried out during online sessions according to the calendar agreed at MPAI-46.
Responses to this MMM-TEC Call for Technologies may/shall include:
Table 1 – Optional and mandatory elements of a response
| Item | Status |
| Detailed documentation describing the proposal | mandatory |
| The completed version of Annex 1. | mandatory |
| The text of Annex 2 duly filled out with the table indicating which Data Types and Data Formats are addressed by the response. | mandatory |
| The text of Annex 5. | mandatory |
| Any other additional relevant information that may help evaluate the submission. | optional |
Respondents are invited to take advantage of the checklist of Annex 3 before filling out Annex 1 and submitting their response.
Respondents are advised that, upon acceptance by MPAI of their submission in whole or in part for further evaluation, MPAI will require that a non-MPAI member immediately join MPAI. If the non-MPAI member elects not to do so, their submission will be discarded. Direction on how to join MPAI can be found online.
Further information on MPAI can be obtained from the MPAI website.
4 References
- MPAI; Moving Picture, Audio, and Data Coding by Artificial Intelligence (MPAI)
- MPAI; MPAI Standards.
- MPAI; MPAI Patent Policy.
- MPAI; Technical Specification: Governance of the MPAI Ecosystem (MPAI-GME), V1.1.
- MPAI; Technical Specification; AI Framework (MPAI-AIF) V2.0.
- MPAI; Technical Report: MPAI Metaverse Model (MPAI-MMM) – Functionalities V1.0.
- MPAI; Technical Report: MPAI Metaverse Model (MPAI-MMM) – Functionality Profiles V1.0.
- MPAI; Technical Specification: MPAI Metaverse Model (MPAI-MMM) – Architecture (MMM-ARC) V1.1.
- MPAI; Use Cases and Functional Requirements: MPAI Metaverse Model (MPAI-MMM) – Technologies (MMM-TEC).
- MPAI; Framework Licence: MPAI Metaverse Model (MPAI-MMM) – Technologies (MMM-TEC).
- MPAI; Template for Responses: MPAI Metaverse Model (MPAI-MMM) – Technologies (MMM-TEC).
- MPAI; Technical Specification: Context-based Audio Enhancement (MPAI-CAE) V2.2
- MPAI; Technical Specification: Compression and Understanding of Industrial Data (MPAI-CUI) V1.1.
- MPAI; Technical Specification; Multimodal Conversation (MPAI-MMC) V2.2.
- MPAI; Technical Specification: Object and Scene Description (MPAI-OSD) V1.1.
- MPAI; Technical Specification: Portable Avatar Format (MPAI-PAF) V1.2.
- MPAI; Technical Specification: Connected Autonomous Vehicle (MPAI-CAV) – Architecture V1.0.
- Call for Technologies: Connected Autonomous Vehicle (MPAI-CAV) – Technologies.
ANNEX 1: Information Form
This information form is to be filled in by a Respondent to this MMM-TEC Call for Technologies.
- Title of the proposal.
- Organisation: company name, position, e-mail of contact person.
- What are the main functionalities of your proposal?
- Does your proposal provide or describe a formal specification and APIs?
- Will you provide a demonstration to show how your proposal meets the evaluation criteria?
ANNEX 2: Evaluation Sheet
NB: This evaluation sheet will be filled out by Evaluation Team members.
Proposal title:
Main functionalities:
Response summary: (a few lines)
Comments on relevance to the Call:
Comments on possible MMM-TEC profiles[1]
Evaluation table:
Table 3 – Assessment of submission features
| Note 1 | The semantics of submission features is provided by Table 4. |
| Note 2 | Evaluation Elements indicate aspects used by evaluators in assessing the submission. |
| Note 3 | Final Assessment indicates the ultimate assessment based on the Evaluation Elements. |
| Submission features | Evaluation Elements | Final Assessment |
| Completeness of description | ||
| Understandability | ||
| Extensibility | ||
| Use of standard technology | ||
| Efficiency | ||
| Maturity of reference implementation | ||
| Relative complexity | ||
| Support of Functional Requirements | ||
| Support of new Functional Requirements |
Table 4 – Explanation of submission features
| Submission
features |
Criteria |
| Completeness of description | Evaluators should:
1. Compare the list of requirements (Annex 3) with the submission. 2. Check if respondents have described in sufficient detail how the requirements are supported by the proposal. Note: Submissions will be judged for their intrinsic merit. An excellent submission of a single technology may be considered instead of a complete submission with a less performing technology. |
| Understandability | Evaluators should identify items that are demonstrably unclear (inconsistencies, sentences with dubious meaning etc.) |
| Extensibility | Evaluators should check if respondent has proposed extensions to the Use Cases (Extensibility is the capability of the proposed solution to support use cases that are not supported by current requirements). |
| Use of standard Technology | Evaluators should check if new technologies are proposed where widely adopted technologies exist. If this is the case, the merit of the new technology shall be proved. |
| Efficiency | Evaluators should assess power consumption, computational speed, computational complexity. |
| Maturity of reference implementation | Evaluators should assess the maturity of the proposal.
Note1: measured by how well the HW/SW implementation of the submission disclosed. Note2: the implementation parts that are not disclosed but demonstrated will be considered if and only if such components can be replicated. |
| Relative complexity | Evaluators should identify issues that would make it difficult to implement the proposal compared to the state of the art. |
| Support of existing Functional Requirements | Evaluators should check how well the technologies proposed can support already identified Functional Requirements. |
| Support of new Functional Requirements | Evaluators should check the relevance of the proposed new functional requirements. |
ANNEX3: Data Formats and Attributes proposed by Respondent
Table 5 is a suggested check list to inform MPAI about the Data Types and Data Formats contained in a response. The “Section” column of Table 5 refers to the Data Types of [9].
Table 5 – List of Data Types
| Section | Types | Formats | Attributes |
| 5.1 | Contract | ||
| 5.2 | E-Capabilities | ||
| 5.3 | Identifier | ||
| 5.4 | MCapabilities | ||
| 5.5 | M-Environment | ||
| 5.6 | M-Instance | ||
| 5.7 | Program | ||
| 5.8 | Rights | ||
| 5.9 | Rules | ||
| 6 | Human and User | ||
| 6.1 | Account | ||
| 6.2 | ActivityData | ||
| 6.3 | Personal Profile | ||
| 6.4 | Personal Data | ||
| 7 | Process Interaction | ||
| 7.1 | Message | ||
| 7.2 | PCapabilities | ||
| 7.3 | ProcessAction | ||
| 7.4 | RequestAction | ||
| 7.5 | ResponseAction | ||
| 8 | Service Access | ||
| 8.1 | Discover | ||
| 8.2 | Inform | ||
| 8.3 | Interpret | ||
| 9 | Finance | ||
| 9.1 | Asset | ||
| 9.2 | Provenance | ||
| 9.3 | Transaction | ||
| 9.4 | Value | ||
| 9.5 | Wallet | ||
| 10 | Perception | ||
| 10.1 | Audio Object | ||
| 10.2 | Visual Object | ||
| 10.3 | Audio-Visual Object | ||
| 10.4 | AV Basic Scene Descriptors | ||
| 10.5 | AV Scene Descriptors | ||
| 10.6 | Audio Scene Descriptors | ||
| 10.7 | Visual Scene Descriptors | ||
| 10.8 | Audio-Visual Event Descriptors | ||
| 10.9 | Audio-Visual Experience Descriptors | ||
| 10.10 | Universe-Metaverse Map | ||
| 10.11 | Model | ||
| 10.12 | Stream | ||
| 10.13 | Summary | ||
| 11 | Space | ||
| 11.1 | Spatial Attitude | ||
| 11.2 | Point of View | ||
| 11.3 | U-Environment | ||
| 11.4 | Basic M-Location | ||
| 11.5 | M-Location | ||
| 11.6 | Basic U-Location | ||
| 11.7 | U-Location |
ANNEX 4: Technologies that may require specific testing
Table 6 will be compiled based on the responses received and the identified need to carry out specific tests on the technologies proposed.
Table 6 – Data Types/Data Formats that may require specific testing
| Section | Technology | Nature of Test |
Mandatory text in responses
A response to this MMM-TEC Call for Technologies shall mandatorily include the following text
<Company/Member> submits this technical document in response to MPAI Call for Technologies for MPAI Metaverse Model (MPAI-MMM) – Technologies (MMM-TEC) (N1781).
<Company/Member> explicitly agrees to the steps of the MPAI standards development process defined in Annex 1 to the MPAI Statutes (N421), in particular <Company/Member> declares that <Company/Member> or its successors will make available the terms of the Licence related to its Essential Patents according to the MMM-TEC Framework Licence (N1783), alone or jointly with other IPR holders after the approval of the MMM-TEC Technical Specification by the General Assembly and in no event after commercial implementations of the MMM-TEC Technical Specification become available on the market.
In case the respondent is a non-MPAI member, the submission shall mandatorily include the following text:
If (a part of) this submission is identified for inclusion in a specification, <Company> understands that <Company> will be requested to immediately join MPAI and that, if <Company> elects not to join MPAI, this submission will be discarded.
Subsequent technical contributions shall mandatorily include the following text
<Member> submits this document to MPAI as a contribution to the development of the planned MPAI-MMM-TEC Technical Specification.
<Member> explicitly agrees to the steps of the MPAI standards development process defined in Annex 1 to the MPAI Statutes (N421), in particular <Company> declares that <Company> or its successors will make available the terms of the Licence related to its Essential Patents according to the MMM-TEC Framework Licence (N1783), alone or jointly with other IPR holders after the approval of the MMM-TEC Technical Specification by the General Assembly and in no event after commercial implementations of the MMM-TEC Technical Specification become available on the market.
[1] Profile of a standard is a particular subset of the technologies that are used in a standard and, where applicable, the classes, subsets, options and parameters relevan for the subset.
