Editing Croquet Project (section)

==Technical functions==

[[File:Interactive 3D map of same world.jpg|thumb|300px|Real time, interactive, 3D map of this very same world. Change something in the world, the map changes. Move something in the map (as one would a chess piece), the object in the world represented by it moves the same way.]]

Croquet is a software development kit (SDK) for use in developing collaborative [[virtual world]] applications.

Applications created using the Croquet SDK are automatically collaborative since application [[Object (computer science)|objects]] in Croquet share a common protocol allowing them to cooperate with each other by employing the principle of replicated computation (synchronization) together with a peer-based messaging protocol. The technology is designed to facilitate such replication between peers, to greatly reduce the overhead needed for widespread deployment of collaborative virtual worlds.

This efficiency, combined with the ability to deploy Croquet-based virtual worlds on consumer-level hardware, makes it possible for developers to deploy large-scale and highly participatory collaborative worlds at very low cost compared with virtual world technologies that are entirely dependent on server-based infrastructures to support the activities of their users.