From: dstamp@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Dave Stampe-Psy+Eng)
Subject: Re: Direct Neural Input (Was Re: VR Oneupmanship ?)
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1991 05:45:13 GMT
Message-ID: <1991Oct31.054513.21478@watserv1.waterloo.edu>
Organization: University of Waterloo



uselton@nas.nasa.gov (Samuel P. Uselton) writes:

>        The first Chapel Hill system also used temple bar mounted CRT's
>        and 1/2 silvered lenses, superimposing wireframe images on the 
>        real world.
>
>        The images look "ghostly" because you do see the world "through"
>        things rendered.  I don't know how satisfactory that would be,
>        or how to avoid it.  (The other option, of course, is to digitize
>        the "real world" and include it in the virtual environment.)

I thought about that kind of system a few years ago, but I had some doubts
about it.  The problems I felt it had were:

- Any motion of the headset translates into BIG shifts in picture
location because of the mirror's magnification

- delay between the video and the real world meant that if, say, you
were moving your hands to manipulate virtual objects, the objects would
lag behind your hand movements: VERY disconcerting!

If these objections can be overcome, this system of half-silvered glasses
has BIG advanteges for the user, as eye-hand coordination is unaffected
by system delays, and real as well as virtual objects can be worked with.
Needs a lot less computer power, too.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| My life is Hardware,                    |                              | 
| my destiny is Software,                 |         Dave Stampe          |
| my CPU is Wetware...                    |                              | 
| Anybody got a SDB I can borrow?         | dstamp@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca |
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