From wgthom@gandalf.rutgers.edu Thu Apr 13 11:31:15 1995 Return-Path: Received: from mx4.u.washington.edu by stein2.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW95.02/UW-NDC Revision: 2.32 ) id AA18534; Thu, 13 Apr 95 11:31:15 -0700 Received: from hitl-new.hitl.washington.edu by mx4.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW95.02/UW-NDC Revision: 2.31 ) id AA25350; Thu, 13 Apr 95 11:31:14 -0700 Received: from RUTGERS.EDU (RUTGERS.EDU [128.6.21.9]) by hitl.hitl.washington.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA29523 for ; Thu, 13 Apr 1995 11:26:48 -0700 Received: from gandalf.rutgers.edu (gandalf.rutgers.edu [128.6.7.26]) by RUTGERS.EDU (8.6.12+bestmx+oldruq+newsunq+grosshack/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA29455 for ; Thu, 13 Apr 1995 14:31:06 -0400 Received: (from wgthom@localhost) by gandalf.rutgers.edu (8.6.10+bestmx+oldruq+newsunq+grosshack/8.6.10) id OAA15789; Thu, 13 Apr 1995 14:31:03 -0400 To: sci-virtual-worlds@rutgers.edu Path: gandalf.rutgers.edu!not-for-mail From: wgthom@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Bill Thompson) Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds Subject: New BOOK on Virtual Reality Technology! Date: 13 Apr 1995 14:30:58 -0400 Organization: Rutgers University Lines: 69 Message-Id: <3mjql2$fcg@gandalf.rutgers.edu> Summary: virtual reality book Keywords: virtual reality book Status: OR Here is the review appeared in the IEEE EMB Magazine March 1995 issue Virtual Reality Technology G. Burdea and P. Coiffet. This book is devoted to virtual reality technology from the hardware including 3-d trackers, sensory gloves, displays and 3-D sound generators, to software development. Its content covers not only the hardware and software development, but applications including the medical care, personal training, entertainment, buisness and manufacturing. The most interesting approach taken by the authors was to devote one of the chapter to force and tactile concepts, which has not been widely elsewhere.. This text is a very well organized, written description of virtual reality technology. It can be used for senior and graduate engineering students as well as by researchers in the areas of medicine, the military, robotics and by the producers in entertainment, the arts, and by the instructors in education. The definitions are very clear. The examples are very carefully chosen. I strongly recommend this book for everybody from the undergraduate student to the surgeon at the hospital. The first chapter gives the definition, and a summary of vritual reality technology. The virtual reality tools including 3-D position sensors, 3-D magnetic probes, sensing gloves, stereo viewing devices, 3-D sound generators were very well introduced in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 discusses new and exciting research areas in the virtual reality technology including the concept of ``Touch and Force Feedback''. Virtual reality computer architectures designed to fullfill the requirement of high speed I/O and real-time simulations are covered in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 introduces several modeling methods including geometric, kinematic, physical and behavior modeling to model the virtual reality environment. Chapter 6 covers virtual reality programming techniques such as world editing, event scheduling and graphical programming. Chapter 7 discusses ergonomics, physiological and psycological aspects of vritual reality. It also covers the impact of virtual reality on our private and public life. The applications of virtual reality to medicine, arts, entertainment, business and the military are presented in Chapter 8. As a biomedical engineering, I really enjoyed reading this chapter. Especially, the section related to the medicine and rehabilition gives an excellent review of the applications of virtual reality to surgery and rehabilition. Finally, in chapter 9, the authors describe some recent advances in virtual reality technology including large volume tracking, new displays, new haptic displays, neural interfaces, image gloves, voice control, and portable computers to emphasize the current and future development in this emerging technology. Cheers, Bill Thompson wgthom@gandalf.rutgers.edu