From: js@montaigne.lif.icnet.uk (Jack Shirazi ) Subject: Re: INDUSTRY: FLASH! "VPL is dead, long live VPL . . ." Date: 7 Dec 1992 15:43:26 -0000 Organization: Imperial Cancer Research Fund In article <1992Dec5.101454.15709@u.washington.edu> marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen) writes: >Pardon the intrusion of a heretic, but I've got to say that getting >rid of the current fixation on datagloves (and stereo goggles, for >that matter) would be one of the best things that could happen to VR. >The real challenges of VR lie in database design, real-time graphics >and information representation techniques, interfacing to Real Work >(running simulations and real-time data collection mechanisms), and >the like --- not in finding new and creative ways to wave one's hands >around in the air. As long as the VR industry, such as it is, >concentrates on ridiculous and clumsy toys like gloves and helmets >(call it the ``golly gee whiz phase'', and quite possibly the only >phase, of the industry as we know it today), it's going to be taken >seriously by too few people to make it truly financially viable and in >fact truly useful to Real People. > >Marc Andreessen >Software Development Group >National Center for Supercomputing Applications >marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu I would agree that there is a need to create some useful environments to proceed to getting to a real visual multi-person interactive virtual world, but that doesn't mean that the peripherals are of no use. It will be necessary for the virtual world to pick up on the users actions, and although at present this is often done with HMD's and gloves, ultimately there will be a non-intrusive method (some cameras/laser detectors aimed at you and able to pick up your movements, which will be analysed by the computer - for example the work done at the MIT media lab where they try to get the computer to read your body language). But these are the easiest, and most easily available methods currently. Using them does not mean that software developed with them will not be portable to other non-intrusive methods of interacting with the machine -- Jack js@bison.lif.icnet.uk If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. -- Maslow