From: Will Overington Subject: Re: TOWARD A GLOBAL INITIATIVE: Presentation at Nikkei Symposium. Date: Wed, 17 Jul 91 17:02:23 +0100 Organization: Coventry Polytechnic, Coventry, UK 17th July 1991 In article <1991Jul15.185155.27507@milton.u.washington.edu> cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) writes in depth, under the title, > >) Human Interface Technology Laboratory 1991 > > >BRINGING VIRTUAL WORLDS TO THE REAL WORLD: >TOWARD A GLOBAL INITIATIVE > I have reproduced short excerpts where I wish to make comments, then added my comments. > Currently, .... .... These objects and/or abstractions are >presented to the participant via an LED- or LCD-based headset >mounted stereoscopic visual device and headphones. A position- >sensing device on the headset instructs the computer where the >participant is and where he or she is looking. The participant also >wears a special glove glove or uses a Spaceball or similar tool to >maneuver through the world and manipulate objects within it. The >computer or computers maintaining the world respond to the signals >from the sensors and tools and adjust the world accordingly. The >net effect is a circumambience of information that is readily >accessible and susceptible to modification. I really find it hard to believe that long term applications of virtual reality can have the user wearing a helmet for a long period of time. I know that Bob is not here saying that this is what is intended. Even with standard monochrome visual display units, people are advised not to use them for more than an hour without a 15 minute break to rest their eyes. Imagine lots of people going to work in the morning, putting on a helmet which completely cuts out all the everyday environment and working for hours at a time with the unnatural added weight of a helmet on their head. Is this a realistic possibility? Also, suppose that a student here in this polytechnic in, say, ten years time, or whenever virtual reality applications equipment for widespread use, not just specialist researcher use, takes off, goes to the library to use some sort of knowledge base that by then might exist. Is it really credible that he or she will go into some room, put on a helmet and sit there, moving their head from side to side with their gloved hand waving around in front of them. Imagine the problems of the library staff with keeping the helmets hygienic and so on. On the other hand, I can imagine a system where one enters a darkroom, either through a door or a small maze-like winding passage with the walls painted matt black, and sits on a seat that is within a plastic cocoon that is about 300 degrees solid round and goes up and over like the dome of a planetarium, so that, apart from the access aperture for the user to get in, which is then behind their back, the cocoon is roughly a 2.5 metre diameter sphere, but with the 'antarctic region' sliced off so as to produce a flat floored area. Now, I do not know if it is possible with present technology, but I envisage the whole surface of this cocoon to be covered with a computer controlled liquid crystal display, so that the display is viewable from being seated within the cocoon. The user may well wear a position indicator. If these were standard, people might well have their own, personal, position indicator unit. > Nearly everyone who enters a virtual world, while lamenting >the low resolution of today's visual presentations, experiences an >"Ah-hah!" when his or her spatial sense cuts in. Having put my thoughts on what I regard as the future impracticality of helmets, I will openly state that I have not yet had the experience of trying a helmet based virtual reality system. I hope to do so when I get the chance. Now, maybe that means that I do not appreciate how important a close contact system such as a helmet is to virtual reality, maybe not. However, I do feel that helmets for all, for many hours a day, is just not a realistic proposition for the future. > I propose the following steps to produce cross-disciplinary, >interlaboratory, and international communications and cooperation, >which will lead us to our ultimate and common goal: > > 1. Establish for ourselves an identity as a distinct community >of researchers whose work is uniquely our own yet of benefit to >many communities outside our own. > > The publication of the new journal, _Presence,_ by the MIT >Press sometime this year will herald our academic credentials; but >we still need a way of unifying the work of the academy and the >commercial laboratories. I wonder if I might suggest that one small aspect of establishing an identity would be to decide upon a prefix word-part to be used to refer to things that are of a virtual reality nature, just as the part-word 'tele' before a consonant or 'tel' before a vowel, denotes an 'at a distance' nature. For example, earlier in this item I suggested a type of cocoon with a liquid crystal display, viewable from being sat within the cocoon. Suppose that I suggest a distinctive name, with the new part-word representing 'of a virtual reality nature' put on the front of the word dome. What should this prefix be? I had hoped to put forward a specific suggestion, but I cannot, at present, think of a suitable part-word that sounds pleasant and avoids confusion with existing words. Does anyone have any ideas for a suitable part-word? Once such a part-word is agreed by common consent, then ?dome and ?glove and other new words would quickly enter the language. These could be lodged with the Oxford English Dictionary in England and other dictionaries. > > > 3. Expand the reach of the USENET and other forums for >electronic information sharing. > I wonder if I might suggest that there be created an additional usenet group, with the same moderator and archivist, with a name such as sci.virtual-worlds.?soft, (where ? is our chosen part-word from previously), where the messages have included in them commands for controlling the user's virtual environment, whatever that may be agreed to be. For example, suppose that the group produces and supplies free of charge a program to run on a PC which has the terminal emulation features of kermit, together with the ability to look for coded commands in incoming messages and carry out actions as a result of them, as well as displaying text and graphics on a vga quality display. Then, one reads the text of sci.virtual-worlds, but one experiences the telepresence and ?presence of sci.virtual-worlds.?soft. This would be a start in just using a PC. Other devices, helmets and domes, could follow once we can get started. Another suggestion is as to whether it might be possible to get CNN to include virtual reality information in the vertical blanking interval of the CNN television signal. This would be a good way to get a one-way information service going around the world. Does anyone have any contacts with CNN or an e-mail address please?