From: "R.Hollands" Subject: Re: INDUSTRY: Virtual i-O death???? Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 15:46:34 +0000 Message-ID: <2EFA496F4B@ramsden.shef.ac.uk> Jorge Alvoeiro wrote: > According to the latest VR News mag ViO is in difficulties and according > to the author of the article this is due to the fact of '... low-cost > HMDs produce unacceptable image quality' Sorry but I DO NOT AGREE > with this conclusion. Virtual reality is something which CANNOT > develop into the consumer market only because there is NO MARKET > for it. But even more basic is that THERE IS NO CULTURE of > virtual reality. [...] > But virtual reality is a totally new concept in computer interaction > and people at large do not know what to use it for. This is almost > like the invention of the faithfull mouse. It allowed people to > interact with computers. It made sense to move a mouse and see an > arrow to move on the screen. It may make sense now, but it was a totally new concept at the time it was introduced. A light pen would make sense - you want the cursor at a point on the screen, you touch it with your pen. But to move the cursor around the screen by rolling some strange little device across a table off to one side, would have struck Joe Punter as a ludicrous idea! > Now put a VR glove on and try to explain > to an adult what this thing can do. The first thing s/he will ask is > whether is similar to a mouse. One can say that it is but it can do > other things as well. The problem is that for this person the OTHER > THINGS may be very alien to him/her because did never have any early > experience of these other moves. As someone who is not a particular fan of VR gloves, but has put them on a number of adults, here's what usually happens. First the adults wiggle their fingers, then they turn their hand over and finally they start to explore their virtual enviroment by trying to grab (usually unsuccessfully) any virtual objects nearby. I'm sure this experience can be backed up by other practicioners and shows that users find gloves quite intuitive. I don't think I've ever been asked if it worked like a mouse, and would certainly never describe it as such. Thge only place I agree with you on this is the idea of communicating with the computer solely through a library of gestures. However, immersive systems which use 3D equivalents of two diemsnioanl menus, sliders, icons etc. take a minimal amount of time to catch on to. > So STOP that nonsense about CONSUMER MARKET. There are enough ViOs, > CyberMaxxs and Virtualities situations already. Let's direct our > attention into the development of virtual reality projects for schools > and secondary education. Until such decision and redirection of market > forces are taken Virtual Reality is NEVER going to develop at any level. > Lets start a serious discussion on this. For a start, most schools only have the budget to buy consumer technology equipment. Jorge mentioned earlier that a generation or so ago the UK used BBC micros in schools and the US did similar things with Apple - these were both consumer market computers! It may be that some HMD firms are having trouble, but I would suggest that this might be specific to the form of hardware. $600 to $1000 is a lot of money to pay for a toy, in all but a minority of societies. Currently the amount of VR games which use HMDs are particularly small, so you run into the same problem with your HMD as with the early Powergloves. How do you define a consumer VR market anyway? If we include in the definition 3D graphics cards, games consoles and software, then only a fool would suggest that a market did not exist! The increasing market for 3D graphics products will inevitable lead to a need for 3D peripherals - at the right price. There is a suprisingly brisk market in Powergloves, for example, even though there is currently no software support. I would expect $100 shutter glasses to become more popular for 3D applications. There will almost definitely be a market for a good 6DOF input device, as soon as someone develops the 'right one'. I'm not so sure about HMDs in the short term. Ideally an HMD should have a wide field of view, and produce an angular resolution equivalent to a standard monitor. For $700 I could buy a 17"+ monitor and a pair of low cost shutter glasses. With this I get a wide(ish) field of view, stereo and keep high spatial and colour resolution whilst remaining relatively unencumbered. The same price will buy me an HMD with a resolution less than 300 by 200 with poor colour resolution, a sloshy head tracker, and loads of wires attaching my head to the computer. So, please don't condemn the entire consumer VR market because of the relative failure of HMDs - their time just wasn't right. Just wait until someone can produce an LCD system which provides 20"+ monitor capability, with a resolution to match, in a pair of sunglasses, and then watch the pick-up in the lap-top computer market. Adding some sort of head tracker would then be child's play and hey-presto, one consumer VR market without the consumers even being aware of it! So what do you think? If your kid genuinely came to you and said "I wanna HMD", and you knew full well it would only be used for the odd game, how much would you be prepared to pay? Be honest! For myself, being currently childless and pennyless, I venture a price of $150 ... (which incidentally you could build one for, if you only bought my book ;-) ) Cheers, Robin Email: r.hollands@sheffield.ac.uk WWW: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~vrmbg/staff/rjh/rjh.html BOOK: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~vrmbg/vrhmhb/vrhmhb.html ***** Please note new phone number ***** Dr Robin Hollands Dept. AC&SE, Sheffield University, Mappin St., Sheffield, S1 3JD, UK Tel: +44 (0)114 2225619 / 2335622 Fax: +44 (0)114 2731729 Email: r.hollands@sheffield.ac.uk URL: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~vrmbg/staff/rjh/rjh.html