From: Nathaniel Bletter <nat@unix.sri.com>
Subject: Re: TECH: 3D VR sketcher work
Date: 9 Oct 1995 20:12:12 GMT
Organization: SRI International


From: Nathaniel Bletter <nat@unix.sri.com>

>Sean Varney <S.E.Varney@DERBY.AC.UK> wrote:
>>Dos anyone know of any work done with 3D Sketcher,s.
>>e.g. VR systems which alow a user to draw in a 3D space
>>with HMD,s or screen displayers. Any info on the computers used
>>and input/output devices would be very helpful.

The MR Toolkit people at U of ALberta
(http://web.cs.ualberta.ca:80/~graphics/) has created a system called
JDCAD that allows you to model using basic solids with a polhemus
tracker in front of a screen. Neat package.

Michael Deering at Sun has done similar work with his Virtual
Holographics workstation.

I created a similar system that using a tracker, stereo glasses and a
screen to draw tracks in 3D, kind of like squeezing out a big tube of
toothpaste. It's quite fun, but most people aren't using to "drawing"
in 3D. They tend to draw only in one plane.


Nat Bletter
SRI International
nat@od.sri.com
http://os.sri.com/people/nat/
(415) 859-4358

[I believe this is mentioned in Deerings VRAIS paper:

Deering, M.F. (1993).  Explorations of Display Interfaces for Virtual
Reality.  In Proceedings of IEEE 1993 Virtual Reality Annual Symposium
(VRAIS) (pp. 141-147).  Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Service Center.

-T.E.]