From: schiniot@ccr.jussieu.fr (Constantin Schiniotakis) Subject: Re: DESIGN: 3D computing vs. virtual reality: what's the difference? Date: Sat, 09 Dec 1995 12:27:24 +0200 Message-ID: Organization: Universite Paris VII (Denis Diderot) From: schiniot@ccr.jussieu.fr (Constantin Schiniotakis) > From: cyberoid@u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) > This seems to be the question of the moment. At least three clients > have asked me this, despite the fact that I personally never use "VR" > as a phrase except in the company of close friends. I have my own > opinions, but what do you think? While the fate of VR seems uncer- > tain, 3D computing's future seems assured. This seems weird, given > the overt similarity of the two practices. What's the difference? One definition of Virtual Reality which replies at the question posed initialy is the following two part definition : - Virtual reality is the reality as perceived by a participant in a virtual world (univers). - A Virtual World is a multidimensional, interactive, synthetic, autodocumented, continuously responding, synthetic world. This definition although not perfect has the following advantages : 1. It includes VR applications such as VideoPlace and the Maze reported by M.Krueger in Artificial Intelligence II. 2. It helps differentiation between 3D image synthesis and VR applications. A Virtual World, is continuously interactive and autodocumented world by opposition to 3D image synthesis where the manipulation of 3D objects is not generaly feasible in a straightforward manner. 3. It differentiates actual popular H-M Interfaces from V-R oriented ones with the words "continuously responding". 4. It is enough general to include almost all the domains of applications of VR, even quite weird ones (teleoperators, audio VRs, etc.) 5. It is not technology related. I'd like to have some comments of this definition if possible. C. Schiniotakis -- =============================================== C. Schiniotakis e-mail : schiniot@ccr.jussieu.fr s-mail : 3, rue des Ecoles, 75005 Paris France ===============================================