From: ohl@world.std.com (Oren H Levine)
Subject: Re: HUMAN-FACTORS: Children, VR, and home entertainment
Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 13:25:27 GMT
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA


Richard Byers (krojb@blitzen.canberra.edu.au) wrote:
<...>
: I have read from posts here and elsewhere of the possible harmful
: affects on children's eyes from the use of poorly designed HMD
: systems, the main factor being the damage caused by eye strain from
: adjusting to the HMD's IPD. This factor could be eliminated by the use
: of a monoscopic display.  What are peoples thoughts on a mono display
: system for home entertainment games , would it provide adequate cues
: for convincing 'immersion', or would a fully adjustable stereo HMD be
: a similar solution?

Short answer: yes! Most of the VR apps I've seen and used use a mono-
scopic display. There are plenty of ways to induce a sense of
immersion besides stereo - wide field of view displays help, and I
think the nature of the application itself makes a very big
difference. If the experience is fun and compelling, people will
become immersed in it, even without lots of expensive display
hardware.

I think the stereo display may be more trouble than it's
worth. Remember that stereo doesn't make much of a difference for
objects more than about 10 m away from the viewer. I think a moving
image will have enough motion and occlusion cues to provide that sense
of a 3D environment.

: Nintendo released the 'Virtual Boy' , this I understand is a mono
: display but isn't full colour, has anyone any comments about this
: product?

I saw an in-store demo. Not impressive at all.

-Oren Levine
Westboro, MA USA
ohl@world.std.com