From: strength@milton.u.washington.edu (Julian Bleecker)
Subject: Re: VR (mis)-defined (was: VR defined)
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 1991 20:18:32 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle


In article <1991Oct26.040627.17559@milton.u.washington.edu> awm@milton.u.washington.edu (Andrew MacDonald) writes:
>
>In article <9110170704.AA19109@milton.u.washington.edu> hlab@milton.u.washington
>.edu (Human Int. Technology Lab) writes:
>>From: strength@milton.u.washington.edu (Julian Bleecker)
>>
>>VR is MOST CERTAINLY something new.  Get beyond "technology" and,
>>as Jacques Ellul termed the idea, consider "techniques" which
>>is a piece of "hardware" AND all of the issues that surround it.
>>Please.
>>
>>-julian
>>
>
>I disagree that VR is something new, but I strongly agree that
>techniques are more important in making definitions than is
>technology.  Specifically, virtual reality (or a virtual world or
>virtual space) is a place your mind goes, a state of mind which
>cannot be defined in words; we should describe the methods used to
>get to into virtual reality.
>
>Andy
>awm@hitl.washington.edu

I guess I should support my view that VR is definitely something
new.  

It is new because it presents a radical departure from conventional
modes of constructing environment.  It has the potential (emphasis)
for providing an entirely new, profoundly compelling level of 
verisimillitude never before encountered.  Add to that the ability
to move the point-of-view (NOT just the visual field) into the 
imagination.  What before VR has provided these features at this
scale?

Historically it seems as though there was a similar departure
between the camera obscura and photography.  The camera obscura
forced a removed, objective point-of-view, while the camera 
allowed the point-of-view to be placed within the eye (the camera
along with many new and radical dialogues on the physiology of
vision.) The camera proposed a new level of experiential truth as
did other mimetic techniques like cinema and video.  

The photographic camera is NOT just a camera obscura with a piece
of film inside.  If you agreed with my point that what is
important is to consider all of the issues that surround a technology,
this should be clear.  Culturally people were demanding a new
level of mobility and representational truth that helped provide
an impetus for the invention of the photographic camera.  There
is probably somewhere (I speculate, but have not investigated this
issue yet) a like impetus that caused a re-emergence of VR (N.B. the
earlier efforts by Krueger and Ivan Sutherland).  I am almost certain
that these earlier efforts were not stymied just by technological
limitations.  (Oops, not that these efforts were for naught!)

Now, by using techniques of computer generated imagery (both visual
and environmental) with a hypermobile POV and (hopefully soon) a
way to effectively and transparently construct decent worlds, VR
will (again, maybe) propose an entirely new level of verisimillitude
that could have profound implications (beyond what is expected from
evolutionary expectations of a new technology being "better" than
the previous).

My point is that this new verisimillitude will be the entirely
new aspect of VR - not just the fact that an amalgam of basically
old technology makes a new technology.  The sum is greater then the
collection of the parts.


-julian