From: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) Subject: Kahaner Report on Japanese Artificial Reality Conference, July 91 Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1991 00:06:28 GMT Organization: Human Interface Technology Lab, Univ. of Wash., Seattle Article: 235 of comp.research.japan Path: milton!dali.cs.montana.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!noao!arizona!rick From: rick@cs.arizona.edu (Rick Schlichting) Newsgroups: comp.research.japan Subject: Kahaner Report: Virtual Reality Message-ID: <6928@optima.cs.arizona.edu> Date: 5 Sep 91 15:41:44 GMT [Dr. David Kahaner is a numerical analyst visiting Japan for two-years under the auspices of the Office of Naval Research-Asia (ONR/Asia). The following is the professional opinion of David Kahaner and in no way has the blessing of the US Government or any agency of it. All information is dated and of limited life time. This disclaimer should be noted on ANY attribution.] [Copies of previous reports written by Kahaner can be obtained from host cs.arizona.edu using anonymous FTP.] From: David K. Kahaner ONR Asia, [kahaner@xroads.cc.u-tokyo.ac.jp] Re: Virtual Reality 5 Sept 1991 This file is named "vr.791" ABSTRACT. Brief summary of Artificial Reality/Tele-Existence Symposium, July 1991, Tokyo Japan. I did not attend this conference. All papers but the keynote were presented by researchers from the US. A panel was evenly divided 3-3. There was a vendor exhibition of two US products and three Japanese, including "Vision System for Tele-existence" (Yaskawa Electric), and "Virtuality 1000SU with Touch Glove" (Nissho IWAI). It was also reported that Matsushita will use VR equipment next month to assist customers in kitchen design, but that the equipment was developed by VPL from California. It is difficult to know how to judge this field. As far as I can tell from reading the papers, many potential applications are hoped for in industrial applications, but at the moment most of these are speculative, or at best in prototype form. There are a number of small commercial US start-ups, while Japanese work is either at the universities or within large corporate laboratories. Naturally the first "applications" are to expensive video games. Hardware will have to get cheaper and much faster to support synchronization with human-hand-head-eye movements. The most interesting scientific paper was from Bryson (NASA) concerning applications to visualizing fluid simulations. This is a viable system, but also one of the more natural and hence conservative applications. The Japanese are very interested in robotics related aspects. For example, Tachi discussed various possibilities of a master-slave system with a visual and auditory sensation of presence, computer control system and an anthropomorphic slave robot mechanism with an arm having seven degrees of freedom and a locomotion mechanism. Sato has been working on object manipulation in 3-D and vizualization of perceptual information flow. Hirose listed three projects focused on visualization at U Tokyo, a See-Through Helmet Mounted Display, Virtual Physical Space Simulator, and Virtual 3-D Visualization of Complicated Software. Iwata described two projects involving force-feedback, one a desk-top hand, and the second a walker. Although the titles of the papers may not emphasize it, the Japanese are extremely interested in the larger concepts of VR and view it as a way of changing time and space in industry by eliminating the time/space necessary to move between two locations. PROGRAM INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON ARTIFICIAL REALITY AND TELE-EXISTENCE 9-10 JULY 1991, TOKYO JAPAN (All the papers listed below are in English, except for the first, which has an English abstract.) Impact of Virtual Reality Technology on Industry Yoshio Tsukio, Prof Mechanical Engineering, U Tokyo Telepresence and Artificial Reality, Some Hard Questions Thomas Sheridan, Prof Engineering & Applied Psychology, MIT Virtual Environment for the Exploration of Three Dimensional Steady Flows Steve Bryson, NASA-Ames Research Center Using Virtual Reality to Examine Organizational Functioning Charles Grantham, San Francisco State University VR Display Parameters for Low-Cost Games Al Becker, President Reflection Technology Corp Interactive Video Disc for Culture Exchange and Tele-experience of Appreciating Chinese Opera Wen-Chi Cheng, Student NYU What Should You Wear to an Artificial Reality? Myron W. Krueger, President Artificial Reality Corp Virtual Worlds: Towards a Global Collaboration Robert Jacobson, Assoc Director, Human Interface Tech Lab, U Washington The Current Tendency of VR and its Practical Use in the Industrial World Jaron Lanier, Founder & CEO, VPL Research Inc. Untitled Lecture Jonathan Waldern, Managing Director, W Industries Inc. PANEL DISCUSSION Newtork Society Business Media Education Coordinator: Sasumu Tachi, Assoc Prof Res Center for Advanced Sci and Tech, U Tokyo Interests: Intelligent sensory control of robots, human robot systems with sensation of presence "Tele-Existence--Toward Virtual Existence in Real and/or Virtual World" Panalists: Thomas Sheridan Myron Krueger Robert Jacobson Michitaka Hirose, Assoc Prof, Dept Mechano-Informatics, U Tokyo Interests: Human Machine Interaction, Bio-Eng "Visualization Tool Applications of Artificial Reality" Makoto Sato, Assoc Prof Res Lab of Precision Machinery and Electronics, Tokyo Institute of Technology Interests: Image proc, pattern recog, human interface "Space Interface Device for Artificial Reality" Hiro Iwata, Assoc Prof of Inst of Eng Mechanics, U Tsukuba "Force Display for Virtual Worlds" ---------------------END OF REPORT--------------------------------------- --