From: Harry Fearnhamm Subject: The need for a standard. Date: Wed, 13 Nov 91 10:44:17 GMT Dave: dstamp@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Dave Stampe-Psy+Eng) Chris: Chris H Chris> Despite the problems I managed to stumble Chris> into the Teapot room and inspect the teapot in the middle of the Chris> floor by kneeling close by. I then picked it up and walked over to Chris> the TV and inserted the Teapot into the side of the TV. This Chris> revealed two problems that I presume are common to most VR systems Chris> today. Dave> This illustrates both the problem with and the need for high-level Dave> representational languages for VR. Present VR languages (what there Dave> are) aren't really set up to handle every possible object manipulation Dave> possible, you must list them. Sounds like someone either slipped up Dave> in specifying one of the object's parameters, or the whole thing was Dave> put together without a HLL at all. Dave> What we need is libraries of objects (and a standard, first!) that have Dave> realistic parameters automatically assigned: i.e. noninterpenetrability, Dave> a weight (future, of course), center of gravity, sound when tapped, etc. Dave> No one can throw together a VR world if they have to do everything in Dave> C! That's the VR system writer's job. I konw we've thrashed this out before, but is anyone working on a standard? By this I mean a Standards Committee. No doubt we could settle for a de facto standard if a company comes up with something that's successful (look at PostScript, for example), but what we *don't* want is something analogous to DOS which is a pig for programmers (hmm, I could say the same about PostScript sometimes!). As an emerging technology, there are still things we haven't thought out yet, but you could say the same about many other fields in that respect, such as network standards (and some things still don't seem to have been thought through in this field...). What we need is some basic proposal, followed by RFC's, and see if we can get a workable system out of it. I'm not very well versed in the success of committee-based standards, so this might not be the best approach, but then again, it would be nice to have something in place when VR approaches critical mass. How interested are the current VR companies in a set of standards covering an HLL and communication (which includes the sort of info communicated, eg, basic HLL info, change info, yet-to-be-decided control info...) If it's too early for standards, when *is* the right time? Harry Fearnhamm, ,---.'\ EMAIL: loki@harlqn.co.uk Harlequin Ltd, (, /@ )/ ...!ukc!cam-cl!harlqn!loki Barrington Hall, /( _/ ') VOX: +44 (0)223 872522 Barrington, \,`---' FAX: +44 (0)223 872519 Cambridgeshire, DISCLAIMER: Nothing is True. ENGLAND. Everything is Permitted.