From: Ray Pettit Subject: HUMAN-FACTORS: A real, customer conceived VR app Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 11:58:27 -0500 Message-ID: <1.5.4.32.19961011165827.006a65f8@connecti.com> Nice job, Tony() in discussing the economic considerations of producing VR hardware. I felt like I was back in school : >Every industry has got to >follow the same product evolution pattern - Innovation, Rising Star, >Cash Cow, Old Dog. The arrival of cheaper products occur during the >later stages of the cash cow stage (Major profit taking occurs here!) >and the beginning of the Old Dog stage (get it out of our wearhouse at >any cost!). Cheap systems do no occur right out of the gate You're following quotations and comments make me feel that I need to clarify myself. >> >The fire service industry is always looking for better ways to train >> >firefighters. With the high cost ($1 million +) and low flexibility >> >of live fire burn room simulators and increasingly tougher EPA >> >regulations, the US Air Force turned to the VR industry in hopes of >> >improving their training options. They wanted to help bridge the gap >> >between multimedia training and the expensive, and dangerous, >> >alternative. >> I was contacted by a fire service who were interested in using the >> Doom graphics engine and an HMD for fire training. I told them to use >> Quake instead, which is now out. So where are the HMDs? >These two paragraphs hit a sore spot with me. First of all, the USAF >"turned to the VR industry in hopes of improving their training >options. They wanted to help bridge the gap between multimedia >training and the expensive, and dangerous alternative." Now the >recommendation to use Quake & an HMD really scares me. Why not take >the $1M, or a portion thereof, that they are spending on building a >new live simulator and take the plunge, go out on a limb and believe >that with that kind of money someone, and there are quite a few >software companies out there, could make a world class virtual fire >simulator. First of all, the first two paragraphs are written by two different people. I did not suggest for the Air Force to use Quake and an HMD in place of a live simulator. We, at 5 Inc., are making the "world class virtual fire simulator" that you suggest. As I stated in the original article, we shouldn't walk into an industry and try to convince them that we can immediately replace what they've been doing for years. Our approach needs to be one in which we augment current methods first, establish the practicality of VR, then aim for loftier goals. Take a brief look at the history of AI (I'm not an AI expert, this is simply the way I see it). Originally, many said that we would be able to equal the human brain in intelligence. This immediately turned many people off to the industry. As our AI technology evolved, and advances slowed, we realized that we may never be able to equal the human brain in intelligence. At this point, more thought was put into the practical applications of current AI technologies. Our approach was not to create something equal to human intelligence, but to create something "smarter" than traditional comuputing methods. Many saw AI as a dying industry, but this was not the case. Slowly, neural networks and expert systems have crept into our daily lives. Perhaps the VR industry is going through a similar process - lofty, unrealistic goals, claims of replacing our environment, attempts to dramatically change the world as we know it, resulting in loss of confidence in the technology. I spoke with a friend recently who was interested in VR, but had no experience in the area. He wanted to know, "when you're in VR do you know where you're at anymore, do you what to stay in, would you just stay there forever if you could?" We can't live up to such expectations. Some in our industry need to pursue technological advances. Some of us, however, need to tackle realistic problem domains with the technology that is currently available. The VR industry is growing and will continue to grow, but I believe most often the growth will be seen one small step at a time. Regards, Ray Pettit 5, Inc. (Full Immersion Virtual Environments) pettit@connecti.com