From root@nntp1.u.washington.edu Sat Dec 10 12:27:01 1994 Received: from mx4.u.washington.edu by stein2.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW94.10/UW-NDC Revision: 2.32 ) id AA17302; Sat, 10 Dec 94 12:27:01 -0800 Received: from hitl-new.hitl.washington.edu by mx4.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW94.10/UW-NDC Revision: 2.31 ) id AA13307; Sat, 10 Dec 94 12:27:00 -0800 Received: by hitl.hitl.washington.edu; id AA26173; Sat, 10 Dec 1994 12:23:28 -0800 Received: from nntp1.u.washington.edu (nntp1.u.washington.edu [140.142.64.2]) by beaver.cs.washington.edu (8.6.9/7.1be+) with SMTP id MAA29007 for ; Sat, 10 Dec 1994 12:26:37 -0800 Return-Path: Received: by nntp1.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW94.10/UW-NDC Revision: 2.32 ) id AA21944; Sat, 10 Dec 94 12:26:47 -0800 X-Sender: root@nntp1.u.washington.edu To: sci-virtual-worlds@june.cs.washington.edu Path: cyberoid From: cyberoid@u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds,alt.architecture,alt.architecture.alternative Subject: ARCH: Designing with Forms and Forces in Virtual Environments [LONG] Date: 10 Dec 1994 20:26:46 GMT Organization: WORLDESIGN INC., Seattle Lines: 634 Message-Id: <3cd2u6$ldm@nntp1.u.washington.edu> Nntp-Posting-Host: stein3.u.washington.edu Summary: A paper prepared for a major European conference on construction. Status: OR For the Fifth World Congress on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, "Habitat and the High-Rise: Tradition and Innovation" Amsterdam, May 14-19, 1995 Special Session on Virtual Reality ----------------------------------------------------------------- DESIGNING WITH FORMS AND FORCES IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS Robert Jacobson, Ph.D. Worldesign Inc. 5348-1/2 Ballard Avenue NW Seattle, Washington 98107-4009 USA +1-206-781-5253, -5254 fax Email: bob@worldesign.com EXPERIENCING THE WORLD-TO-BE The tall building inspires and awes. When we think of modern urbanization, it is the skyline of the city, that mythical line linking the apexes of tall buildings, that comes first to mind. Yet it is one thing to encounter the skyline of a city already built, complete with its historical accretions, and another to imagine a skyline as yet unformed of tall buildings still to be constructed. In the past, architects and builders -- in the past, they were one -- used rough sketches, crude engineering drawings, and rule of thumb to depict the future tall buildings of their times: the castles, cathedrals, and in a few more egalitarian cultures, the common dwellings that reached to the heavens or sheltered among cliffs. Recently, the rough sketches and all have been replaced. High quality draftsmanship produced accurate plans and a new class of architectural artists created both stylized and lifelike renderings, so that every tall building could be envisioned structurally and emotionally. (One might question how much emotion made its way into the buildings of Modern architecture, but for better or worse, the Modern buildings have at least survived.) Lately these crafts have themselves been challenged by new technologies, like CAD and the telecommunications of imagery that, while threatening -- certainly changing -- the life of those who envision (among them, architects, artists, and draftsmen) promises to the rest of us a clearer picture of architectures still to be born. One of the newest of these technologies is virtual worlds technology. In the interest of precision, let us consider that a virtual world is both a scientific and a management term-of-art. It means the dynamic mental picture (sometimes called a mental map) we keep in mind of people, things, and processes we encounter in life. Virtual worlds technology (popularly known as "virtual reality") enables us to get these pictures out of our heads so that others can experience them. A written novel is one way to convey a virtual world (and a good way, for persons with time to write and to read). A better way to do it, for the majority of people who have grown up in a mediated world, is to synthesize a representation of the virtual world using information technology capable of stimulating more of our senses. Even better would be for the virtual world thus designed and generated to be interactive, so that our experiences in the virtual world are not merely passive, but highly active. Interacting with the virtual world means interacting intimately with the ideas of others. Unlike CAD, which essentially deals with static objects, virtual worlds technology is intended to portray that which is alive, uncertain, and risky: human experience. In architecture, ideas are of the essence. A competent virtual worlds technological ensemble (still on the horizon, but now not so invisible as before) into which the architect can bring his or her colleagues, clients, and collaborators (engineers and builders) would be a strong addition to the architects' tools. In fact it would be a meta-tool, one that integrates the production, presentation, and modification of concepts achieved through the use of more ordinary apparatus (like the irreplaceable sketchpad). For the engineer, the uses are obvious, perhaps because virtual worlds technology has some of its roots in engineering: the need to collect and analyze information visually, for example, and a focus on the user's needs as the central reason for the invention of technology. Engineers are already using near-virtual worlds systems for the design and testing of new components for planes and automobiles. A few have even gone so far as to use actual virtual worlds systems, as at Caterpillar, McDonnell-Douglas, and Sandia National Laboratory, to mock up machinery and circuits that do not yet exist. The pace is slower in the construction industry, where tradition is king. But civil engineers are getting the taste for more flexible and communicative analytical tools. In engineering, virtual worlds technology is virtually a fait accompli. What about the builders themselves, who in size if not numbers dominate the construction business? So far, with the exception of Bechtel Corporation, none has come out strongly in favor of virtual worlds as an asset for innovation. The reason isn't hard to see. Most builders are pressed just to deliver product on time and under budget. Working with a new suite of technology, some of it still in development, isn't their cup of tea. This is regrettable, because although virtual worlds technology will undergo constant improvements in capability and knowledge about its use, there are elements of it that are ready for practical applications today, even for builders. For now, the case is strongest for the use of virtual worlds as a way of sharing ideas and concepts. Virtual worlds generated by the current crop of computers and peripherals -- add-on machinery, like projectors and sound generators -- are less than perfect. No one, least of all a virtual worlds developer, would like to spend too much time in a building designed exclusively in a virtual world. But the conveyance of ideas is a less than perfect science, possibly an art, and there is leeway for the use of imperfect tools that nonetheless exceed others in what they can communicate. Various experiments with virtual worlds for architectural purposes and marketing are taking place around the globe, notably here in The Netherlands. (Unlike expensive-to-develop hardware, good ideas have never been the monopoly of big nations.) In many cases, these experiments are being conducted in laboratories; in other case, in the market. In my home, Seattle, small but thriving architectural design businesses are creating with PCs lifelike "walk-throughs" of proposed construction, for developers, real-estate salespersons, and their clients. Their success is a measure of the power of virtual worlds technology even at its less able "low end." These ad hoc efforts are complemented by the systematic exploration of of more complete virtual worlds as architectural tools , at the CALIBRE Institute of which Geert Smeltzer is director and at similar institutions in Europe, North America, Australia, and Asia. Gradually connections are being made between the practitioners and the scholars, so that laboratory work can help to refine and improve field work. This Fifth World Congress of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat is about one year too soon to see the fruits of this convergence, but by 1996 (if not sooner) the use of virtual worlds for envisioning and experiencing future tall buildings will be a regular, if still infrequent, occurrence. The point is not to to automate the design process but rather to work within it with tools that automate representation and sharing of design ideas. If the tools become easier to use, more time and effort can be spent on the ideas. Professionals projecting their ideas into the synthesized virtual world can express themselves more fully. Equally important, they will be able to bring their clients and collaborators "into" their ideas. Relationships among the various parties to a new tall building will (one hopes) improve accordingly. These new abilities are worth something and within the next year more than one builder is going to discover this. So far this paper has mainly talked in the abstract about what can and will be. What needs to happen now, concretely, to make this future real? First, the technology needs to be improved. No one will argue otherwise. The graphic and acoustic images should feature higher resolution. Presentation technologies, at least in a collaborative setting, should be other than inexpensive and low-quality headsets. (Worldesign, my firm, favors projection technology that can produce shared immersive experiences, like the "Holodeck" in the popular television series, Star Trek: The Next Generation.) Expensive workstations are indispensable for some purposes, but for most purposes more powerful PCs, when they become available this year, will prove a better buy (for professionals and clients alike). Finally, today's anomalous worldbuilding software must give way to a more standardized, reliable, and easily learned suite of tools. It's all in the works. Technology, however, comprises more than hardware and software. Knowledge, skills, and organizational settings conducive to the use of virtual worlds technology today are in scarce supply. Again, the best way to accelerate the attainment of favorable social conditions is to work with what is now available, using it to its full advantage, learning in preparation for the next generation of technology. The Japanese do this perhaps better than anyone else, although in Japan a protracted period of caution and collective deliberation may precede the decision to employ a new technology. Certainly in the case of virtual worlds, the Japanese (including large builders like Shimizu) have described the most extreme applications of virtual worlds technology, though they have yet to implement many of these visions. Time will tell. By 1996, the technology of virtual worlds will be sufficiently advanced, in both technical capability and knowledge, to find application around the world. Without doubt many of those attending this Council meeting will have a chance to work with this technology before the end of the decade; more, before the end of their careers. At Worldesign we have given much thought to the characteristics of tools we would like to put at the disposal of the building industry. In 1992, we prepared for the Japan Research Institute, a division of the Sumitomo holding company, a white paper on an hypothetical "Virtual Design Environment."* Although the "VDE," proposed to be used in the MITI-sponsored "Friendly Environments" program, was never built, it fired our imagination regarding the direction in which our technology might go. Not surprisingly, many if not most of us in the virtual worlds business have a background in spatial design, art, or engineering: each of us foresees advances in our prior discipline through the use of virtual worlds technology. Those like me, who come out of architecture and urban design, want to see the tools applied in these fields. (We are continuing our work with JRI for a new consortium of Japanese construction firms.) Worldesign's VDE was conceived as a shared immersive environment in which an entire region, a city, a neighborhood, or an individual building could be experienced through sight and sound. Using manipulative devices not unlike the felt-tip pens and pencils architects favor, the "inhabitants" of the computer-generated virtual world could explore and modify both large-scale and local designs and plans. Inhabitants would not have to wear awkward, isolating headsets or other encumbrances: high-powered projectors and surround-sound would produce convincing visual and acoustic images, giving substance to the imagined world. Clients would not only be tolerated in the VDE but encouraged to enter, to gain a clearer understanding of the architect's or builder's visions. (JRI's intended clientele were the planners, corporations, and civic organizations of Kansai, intent on remaking their region in world-class terms.) Virtual world models could be bicycled among VDEs or, in the near-future, telecommunicated from one VDE to another. A more intriguing possibility: the sharing of virtual worlds continuously over an expanded telecommunications network, so that inhabitants in each of the VDEs could "meet" in the virtual building-to-be. This is not far-fetched. For years the U.S. military has been running global war games with participants at bases around the world connected by the transcontinental SIMNET. Military personnel in SIMNET simulators have the experience of piloting vehicles against each other on a common battlefield even though they might be physically separated by hundreds or even thousands of miles. The first nonmilitary, scientific meeting on distributed virtual worlds was held in Tokyo, early in 1994. And at the Mecklermedia VR'94 Expo in New York City, in December 1994, a panel of experts including researchers from MCI, British Telecommunications, and European telecommunications equipment suppliers convened for a three-hour discussion of "televirtuality," as it is called. There is a good deal of activity in Europe surrounding televirtuality; North America and Asia are only slightly behind. VDEs of the future will feature televirtuality as a matter of course. When virtual worlds can be shared and commonly experienced across telecommunications networks, VDEs will come into their own within the global building industry. By that time we may have accumulated enough practical experience with stand-alone VDEs to fully exploit the power of this powerfully syncretic technology incorporating many design and construction traditions. DESIGN ISSUES IN VIRTUAL WORLDBUILDING One of the most interesting aspects of the VDE and related technologies of "virtualization," in an ideal form, is their ability to maintain and depict various relationships not only among objects but also between objects and the virtual world -- expressing all the real-world "fuzziness" with which architects and builders must contend. In this regard it has more in common with GIS (geographic information systems) than CAD (although current GIS are fairly incapable of incorporating uncertainty). CAD has a different function, to portray with precision the intended relationships among objects in an engineered environment. It usually focuses on the forces acting among objects, rather than external forces working on the objects. Both CAD and virtual worlds technology will belong in the building industry's future toolkit. Whereas CAD's properties are well-known if still underutilized, however, virtual worlds technology is novel. Appropriate methods for its application remain unknown. From other design fields, like architecture and information science (including librarianship), it is possible to piece together a theory of design and virtual worlds. With few working systems in the field, little of this theory can yet be confirmed. This theory can be suggestive, however, and is a good starting point for more elaborate experiments and applications in coming months and years. A virtual world exists simultaneously in the minds of the system users and in the constantly updated memory of the computer driving the presentation of a synthetic virtual environment. The closer the system-generated virtual world resembles the virtual world in the minds of its beholders, the "better" it is said to be. This is a highly subjective opinion, of course. One can evaluate a virtual world for its verisimilitude (how closely it photorealistically portrays an image from the real world), its dynamics (how well the objects portrayed interact among themselves and with the participants in the virtual world), or its abstractions (how clearly the virtual world explains complex relationships), for instance. These three and other criteria can interact synergetically. A system- generated virtual world can feel very "real" even though its imagery may be primitive. Conversely, a virtual world that is finely crafted visually and acoustically can still fall flat as a communicator of vital information. To build a virtual world, one begins with CAD modeling software. Multidimensional (usually 3D) objects are created for insertion into the virtual world. Then "worldbuilding" software is used to position these objects in the virtual world, assign them roles, and direct relations among these objects. Current software leaders, like Sense8 Inc.'s WorldToolKit (WTK), Autodesk Corp.'s Cyberspace Developers Kit (CDK), Paradigm Technology Inc.'s software suite, and Division Ltd.'s DVise still require their users, who now number in the thousands around the world, to possess considerable programming skills. Also, many of these products, though commercially available, are still under development and lack certain essential features, especially a good API (applications development interface) for changing how virtual worlds perform. The goal of virtual worlds software developers is to ease the burden of building virtual worlds. To this end, many universities and companies in Europe and North America are creating worldbuilding software with increasingly automatic functions. Much of this software, still in the laboratory, should wend its way into commercial markets beginning this year and become more prominent as a new interface technology in 1996 and beyond. A key problem the software developers are trying to solve is how to enable quick integration of objects into the virtual world with behaviors that are appropriate. One solution has been to assign attributes to objects, so that an object portraying a building, for example, also contains within it, or can access, information about the building's structural integrity or some other feature. In a complex virtual world, having each object "know" the attributes of every other object, so that they dance well together, is a daunting programming mission and imposes high overhead on the computers driving the virtual world. Perhaps a better solution, still being worked out, is to imbue the virtual world with instructions for the objects a la field theory. (My firm, Worldesign Inc., is working on a solution we call WorldSpace(R).) In one way or another, virtual worlds will become more complete compositions once worldbuilding is no longer the exclusive domain of the skilled programmer. The worldbuilder can exercise several options when how he or she frames the virtual world, depending on the application. For example, the virtual world can have more than three dimensions. Additional dimensions (for example, abstract relationships among a class of objects such as building elements) can be accommodated visually using invented imagery (such as fields and flows), or acoustically using sound points and fields. A question related to that of dimensional complexity is how to provide for user orientation and navigation within the virtual world. On a construction site, gravity in the physical world constrains movement in two dimensions across the earth's surface. Cranes and elevators permit movement in tightly constrained vertical space. In either case, parties monitoring the site or managing activities there are limited by physics to slow motion through the site. In a virtual world, the participants can have the experience of flying over, under, and through a site, experiencing the built and unbuilt infrastructure and buildings intended for the site. Individuals and groups in virtual worlds can get disoriented and lost in virtual worlds, however. This is a novel possibility and how much freedom to transgress physical limits the participants should be granted is an open question. (Today's commonly-seen animated computer- generated "walk-through's" and "fly-through's" do not permit users to deviate from a preordained path. They are not a good guide to how virtual worlds should work.) As more becomes known about how planners, architects, and builders perceive and "work" a construction site, virtual worlds can be crafted to enhance these processes. Eventually the rules on which the virtual worlds are based can be encapsulated in software products. _Wayfinding,_ as practiced by architects, landscape architects, and environmental designers, may contribute a partial solution to the orientation and navigation conundrum. Architects and environmental designers rely on wayfinding principles to provide inhabitants of their buildings and places with directional instructions. Originally confined to the design and location of signage, wayfinding increasingly is being incorporated in the design of the built environment. The idea is that inhabitants should not have to resort to stitched-on signs and labels to find their way through and among buildings and places. The logic of the building or place should be self-evident -- or rather, not apparent to the inhabitant at all, except that the building or place is easier to understand and navigate. Wayfinding in virtual worlds employs a different set of directional aids (for the hearing-impaired, sound cues may substitute for Braille strips), but the principles are the same. Young as wayfinding practice is, however, it is unsurprising that even less is known about its uses in virtual worlds. The same can be said of _orienteering,_ which expands wayfinding from the site to the region. _Sense-making_ is another rich methodological vein that can be mined for ideas on imputing meaning to virtual worlds. Sense-making is a system devised by Ohio State University professor Dr. Brenda Dervin for discovering both what things mean and where things are meaningless -- plain confusing -- in an individual's mental models of the physical and social worlds. After years of refinement, sense-making today is regularly used by librarians and other custodians of information to assay their patrons' informational needs. Virtual worlds may be as meaningful or meaningless as the "real" worlds in which we are allegedly more comfortable. Sense-making will enable designers of virtual worlds to recast them in their most effective form, according to what participants take away from pilot tests. In the case of the building industry, how much virtual worlds really improve the work of, say, a construction specifier, by making parts and processes easier to assemble in his or her mind's eye, can be determined using sense-making methods. The psychology of design -- understanding the thinking of architects and engineers, for example -- might be expected to contribute meaningfully to the crafting of virtual worlds to serve the design professions. Research findings in this area are equivocal, however, and too often couched in the language of the cognitive scientist rather than the environmental designer. For now, although growing numbers of psychologists are interested in the effects of immersion in a virtual world, most commercial designers of virtual worlds are not scientists. They rely on their instincts and subjective experience for guidance. For now, given the few critical applications of virtual worlds technology in the building industry, this situation is tolerable. But applying the lessons of psychology may become more common as worldbuilding becomes systematized and professionalized. Other lessons for the builders of virtual worlds may be learned from the theatre, film, and videogames (entertainment technologies ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous); military experiments with global virtual war games played by participants at 150 sites around the world; and the phenomena associated with using online computer services. This plethora of knowledge unfortunately is diverse and as a science it is inchoate. What appears to be consistent among successful virtual experiences, however, is that their builders are as concerned for the dynamic relationships among objects in the virtual experience as for the objects themselves. Leading landscape designer Lawrence Halprin has said it best: _"Design not with forms but with forces."_ Forms (objects) may "live" in a virtual world; it is their collective life, rather than the objects that share it, that requires attention. For building-industry applications of virtual worlds, worldbuilders are well-advised to concentrate on the ways that things which make up the built environment work together (natural forces on infrastructure, girders with I-beams, ROI as a function of interest rates, and so forth, depending on the user domain), how industry professionals work with these things, and how together they generate new factors that must be incorporated in the virtual worlds being portrayed. Forces, not forms, are the real stuff of virtual experience. Fortunately, even in its current still-developing state, virtual worlds technology is capable of expressing forces as well as forms. Still without a unified theory, the design of virtual worlds is a craft on the verge of becoming a profession. PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE Creating the built environment, including tall buildings, is a collaborative enterprise. Many professionals contribute to the effort: among them, investors, architects, engineers, builders, financiers, regulators -- and each has a need to communicate ideas with the others and with the ultimate collaborator, the Client. Their profound collective need for better communications within the building industry is beginning to drive the development of relevant virtual worlds applications. It would be a mistake to overstate the scale of development, however, since the sensational press treatment of "VR" in the early 1990s has made investors (including governments) notoriously skittish about funding anything to do with virtual worlds It takes a great deal of demand to generate a little capital for virtual worlds-related new-product development. Consequently, progress toward the VDE and other virtual worlds innovations is slow, slower than it can and should be for the building industry. Lists of prospective applications are easy to make, difficult to implement, but the following industry activities (among others) can immediately benefit from the more accurate communication of ideas that virtual worlds systems encourage and enable: * Location characterization and siting * Planning and environmental reviews * Financial planning and management * Architectural and landscape design * Analysis and planning of infrastructure * Communication of designs and elements (among architects, engineers, builders, regulators, and clients) * Construction-products specification * Management at the construction site * Facilities maintenance of completed buildings and campuses For each of these activities virtual worlds can be an enabling technology, whether developed for a specific function or for the sharing of ideas across professional boundaries. The Bechtel Corporation, a leading construction company, has organized a consortium of firms and university laboratories to design and build a prototype turnkey virtual worlds system. The primary purpose of this system is training operators of complex construction machinery, but inevitably it will be used for many of the activities listed above. Some applications may come from cognate fields, like AM/FM (automatic mapping/facilities management, primarily as applied by electric and other utilities). Worldesign Inc. is working with Puget Power, an AM/FM technology leader, and with Puget Power's software subsidiary, Tellus, to create "virtualizing" software compatible with Tellus's existing utility management products. The Worldesign software takes data outputs from Tellus's expert-system-based analytical tools (usually presented as schematic 2D maps) and converts it into 3D on-screen or immersive virtual worlds. This makes it much easier for non-technicians, like the real-estate developers who must be consulted in the location of transformers and street lights, to "see" for themselves the planned installations as they will appear to home buyers and industrial renters. It does not take much to convert this "add-on" software to a self- standing product suitable to interactive visualization of the built environment. Digitized GIS and CAD data supplied by real-estate developers and garnered from existing data libraries can easily be assembled into a "virtual neighborhood" that can be iteratively redesigned as the project progresses. In short, Worldesign's utility-oriented software, as configured for the building industry, is a basic component of the VDE. Obviously, with time, the VDE will become a reality; but this pace of development is unconscionably slow for a building industry that prides itself on becoming streamlined and up-to-date. The building industry cannot depend on the utility industry (or the theme parks or aircraft manufacturers) to invent the virtual worlds-based tools that the building industry needs. The longer the building industry waits to invest in these tools, the longer it will be before they are available for application, testing, and refinement. In the meantime, the building industry could slip even further behind other industries in terms of speed to completion of projects and productivity. On the positive side, there are real cost savings inherent to digital media generally, including the production, distribution, storage, and retrieval of images; in these virtual worlds also can partake. On one project in which Worldesign was involved (at an early stage), the eventual costs of blueprints alone constituted approximately 15 percent of the total cost of the project -- not to mention the cost and legal exposure if a blueprint or similar complex graphic is misinterpreted or misunderstood. At least part of this expense, totaling for this project tens of millions of dollars, might have gone to storage of imagery in virtual worlds, where is is more accessible and compelling. The best argument for using virtual worlds as a design tool within the building industry is that it permits the early and continuous involvement of the client in a design process that, in the past, has been almost arcane and certainly inaccessible to the layperson. Without exception, individuals who have experienced an architectural construction in a virtual world, be it prehistoric and no longer standing, a contemporary development, or a structure out of science fiction, appear to retain a clearer, more positive picture of the building or site than with more conventional presentation media. (Accurate 3D sound, which is totally absent from conventional presentation media, makes a large contribution to this effect.) The evidence for this claim is still largely anecdotal but it is persuasive for those who regularly poll participants in virtual worlds demonstrations and experiments. The point is, if the client is an early member of the design team, there will likely be fewer change-orders and cancellations of projects at their near-conclusion, when changes are most expensive. The client can "buy in" via the medium of the virtual world and become a de facto or honorary member of the building team. The client becomes an advocate. Tall buildings are unique. They are large, expensive, complex, and prominent. Tall buildings attract attention and affect everything around them, with consequences that are sure to be disputed before a single shovel of dirt is turned. It is no longer an easy matter to initiate and carry through a tall building project because of the finance needed, the regulatory approvals required, and the sheer difficulty of bringing in a hugely intricate construction on time and under budget. Initially in a small way, and then in ways larger with time, virtual worlds technology will help ease the communicative burdens associated with getting these things done and tall buildings erected and populated. SUGGESTED REFERENCES Arthur, Paul, and Passini, Romedi, 1992. WAYFINDING: PEOPLE, SIGNS, AND ARCHITECTURE, McGraw-Hill, New York City, 238 pp. Begault, Durand, 1994. 3-D SOUND FOR VIRTUAL WORLDS AND MULTIMEDIA, Academic Press, San Diego, California, 230 pp. Benedikt, Michael, 1991. "CYBERSPACE: SOME PROPOSALS," in _Cyberspace: First Steps, _ Benedikt, M., ed. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 119-224. Holtzman, Steven, 1994. DIGITAL MANTRAS: THE LANGUAGES OF ABSTRACT AND VIRTUAL WORLDS, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 320 pp. Jacobson, Robert, 1994. "VIRTUAL WORLDS CAPTURE SPATIAL REALITY," _GIS World, _ Vol. 7, No. 12, December, pp. 36-39. Jacobson, Robert, 1994. "VIRTUAL WORLDS: A NEW TYPE OF ARCHITECTURE," _Virtual Reality World,_ May/June, pp. 46-52. Also published as "CAD Off the Screen: The Virtual World as a More Natural Design Environment for Architects," _ACS Kompendium 93,_ Architektenkammer Hessen, Stuttgart, Hesse, pp. 43-50. Novak, Marcos, 1991. "LIQUID ARCHITECTURES IN CYBERSPACE," in _Cyberspace: First Steps,_ Benedikt, M., ed., MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 225-254. Novitski, B.J., 1994 VIRTUAL REALITY FOR ARCHITECTS, _Architecture,_ October, pp. 121-125. Wexelblat, Alan, 1991. "GIVING MEANING TO PLACE: SEMANTIC SPACES," in _Cyberspace: First Steps,_ Benedikt, M., ed., MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 255-271. Worldesign Inc., 1993. DESIGNING VIRTUAL WORLDS, Worldesign Inc./Evans & Sutherland Computer Company, Seattle, Washington. TOPICAL JOURNALS AND NEWSLETTERS _CyberEdge Journal_ Mill Valley, California (bimonthly) _Presence: The Journal of Teleoperators and Virtual Environments_ MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts (quarterly) _Real-Time Graphics_ CGSD Corporation, Mountain View, California (bimonthly) _Virtual Reality World_ Mecklermedia Inc., Westport, Connecticut (bimonthly) _VR News_ Cydata Limited, London (10 issues annually) ONLINE RESOURCE On the USENET, an Internet function, the newsgroups _sci.virtual-worlds,_ _alt.architecture,_ and _alt.architecture.alternative_ On the WELL, the _vr_ and _design_ conferences On CompuServe, the _Cyber+_ forum On America Online, the _Virtual Reality_ forum On BIX, the _VR_ conference