From: sobiloff@agnes.acc.stolaf.edu (Chrome Cboy)
Subject: Re: Implementing a virtual world
Date: 7 Jun 90 21:55:00 GMT
Organization: St. Olaf College; Northfield, MN



In article <1990Jun6.153725.6857@watmath.waterloo.edu> mwtilden@watmath.waterloo
.edu (M.W.Tilden, Hardware) writes:
>
>In article <9005311121.aa07914@lazlow.cis.udel.edu> pezely@cis.udel.edu (Daniel
 Pezely) writes:
>At this University, I have noticed a distinct drop in the 
>number of 'bright-eyed' hacks in the past few years.  The intrusive,
>question-asking programmer-larvae is now an endangered species.
>Without this replenishment of people who, let's face it, put in
>incredible hours for little or no reward, VR progress will be slow.

Interesting; it seems that there is a slight *increase* in the number of 
hackers that are turning up at this college. It might have something to do
with the dramatic increase in computing machinery available, though... :-)
Seriously, our CS dept is overwhelmed with the student demand for computer
classes, and we can't seem to buy enough computers to keep everyone happy.
Kind of a nice environment to be in, huh? :-)
 
>The other obvious problem is bandwidth.  Todays gridding of our
>planet with high-speed fiber-optics is inadequate for the 
>incredible quantities of data-flow that a full VR news service 
>should carry.  Compression and distribution standards notwithstanding.
>And without this sort of free exchange, VR will flounder for a long
>while.  We haven't even got a standard graphics-image exchange system
>that anybody can agree on.  How could we set up exchange for full
>animation demos?

First, check out some of the latest ISDN proposals from MIT--I think you'd
be suprised at how much information can be pumped through fiber. The two
places I've found good info about this are Stewart Brand's book "The Media
Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT" and the latest issue of Byte magazine.

Second, PostScript is rapidly becoming the standard of choice (but with
the politicking between Microsoft and Apple, who knows...) for graphic-
image exchange. Also, there seems to be great acceptance of the RenderMan
format for animation, IMHO partly arising from the lack of a good standard
for regular graphics and the headaches that has caused.

                                                        -CCb

"I drive fast. I drive safely. The two are *not* mutually exclusive, contrary
        to popular delusion." -CCb
"I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years
        of maturity." -Albert Einstein