From: Mike Bevan Subject: CONF: Virtual Heritage '96 Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 12:56:23 +0000 [posted to the v-humans group, and cross-posted here for general interest] This is for the benefit of anyone interested in virtual humans research who can get to the Virtual Heritage '96 conference in London in December (12-13). The high spot this year will be the unveiling of Nadia Thalmann's celebrated project to bring virtual life to a group of the Chinese terracotta warriors. This is a landmark project not only for virtual humans research, but also for the use of VR techniques in the reconstruction of history. The ability to populate historical and archaeological sites with autonomous v-humans, complete with realistic contemporary clothing, hairstyles, behaviour and social interactions, and in due course to enter their world and move amongst them, obviously has extraordinarily wide-ranging implications. It is also worth making the point that virtual heritage is now starting to attract interest and investment from some very large theme park and visitor centre developers. I know of a half dozen such projects with eight or nine figure budgets, currently at the planning and feasibility stage, in which virtual heritage reconstructions will play a central role. One of the largest - the Virtual Reality Valley scheme, based around a reconstruction of Hadrian's Wall and its history, was described at last year's conference. The web site for the event is at www.heritage.co.uk/heritage/virtual/ Apart from Nadia's presentation, there is a lot of interest in Infobyte's wonderful Colosseum reconstruction, by far the largest-scale virtual heritage project yet attempted, and TASC Inc's reconstruction of the Battle of Gettysburg, using their Portable War Room simulation technology. Actually, I think the whole program (for which Silicon Graphics are the ever-supportive sponsors) is brilliant and wonderful - even more so than last year. And yes, this is a commercial announcement - we organise and produce the event. However, I can tell you that although Virtual Heritage 95 was a sell-out, it generated a lot more revenue for a couple of the professorial presenters than for the producer, and I shan't mind at all if the same happens this time. I think it's about time the cultural and educational applications of VR moved up the ratings a little, and we shall be announcing some more initiatives with that in mind before long. Be there, if you can. Mike Mike Bevan