From: jew5001@zeus.tamu.edu (WILLIAMSON, JOHN EDWARD)
Subject: PUBS: Virtual Reality Playhouse (Review)
Date: 6 Aug 1992 18:40:03 -0500
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services



I've purchased _Virtual Reality Playhouse_ by Nicholas Lavroff and I
offer this quick review since there have been several inquiries about
this book posted.

The book is about 143 pages long, only the first 40 pages actually
cover VR.  The remaining pages serve as a user's guide for the
software included.

The majority of the software included on the book's disk has already
been discussed here and is available on several ftp sites.

The software:

Superscape Demo: The industrial park walkthrough demo produced by
Dimension International.

Stare-EO: A working demo a program which allows you to create amazing
random dot stereograms.  Some of the features (print, save import PCX)
are turned off for this version.

Lemme:  The the demo from the Virtual Reality Studio.  The book does
include the solution and location of all the gold bars for those who
never could solve it.

Continum: A demo of a commercially aviable game by the same name.  You
can "bounce" your mobile around in a 3D world.

Mig 29: A demo of Mig 29 Fulcrum, a below average flight simulator.

Wire 3D: Generates and animates simple wire frame figures in
anaglyphic (red/blue_ 3D.  The glasses are included with the book

3DV: A program to rotate simple wire frame drawings.  Similar to the
Acrospin demo that was out a few years ago.

3DGV: A program to display GIF files for use with the SEGA glasses.  I
may be mistaken, but this is the only SEGA program that supports
(allegedly) VGA modes up to 800X600.  I could only get the 320X200
mode to work with my Tsend 3000 chip set.

It also has a schematic for connecting the SEGA glasses to the DB25
connector by soldering parts of the adapter board that came with SEGA
glasses.  As a result, you don't need to make your own board.

An index of companies and some simple instructions for connecting the
POWER GLOVE to a PC.

Overall, I can't reccommend the book to anyone but those with no
actual hands on experience in VR or those who haven't read Krueger's
or Rheingold's book.  But the novice, general public, was the intended
audience for this book.

John Williamson