From: snowdond@cs.man.ac.uk (Dave Snowdon)
Subject: Re: TECH: Re: World Descriptions
Date: 8 Jul 92 11:29:52 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester



In article <1992Jul8.012211.21980@u.washington.edu>, s047@sand.sics.bu.oz.au (Jeremy Lee) writes:
+In article <1992Jul7.011552.13082@u.washington.edu> Michael writes:
+
+broehl@sunee.waterloo.edu (Bernie Roehl) writes:
+>NETWORKING
+>   In order for virtual worlds to be really interesting, they'll have to be
+>   populated by more than just inanimate (or preprogrammed) objects; we'll
+>   want to share such worlds with other humans.  That implies some means of
+>   communicating the changing state of the world to multiple particants.
+ 
+ Aha!! Here is one of the concepts that I am fighting against.
+ 
+ I don't see a participant in a VR in any way different from any other
+ object. You are just another object, that is driven by an internal
+ program that just happens to be communicating with outside peripherals.
+ As far as I am concerned, every object is an observer, and every
+ observer is just another object. the minute you elevate one above
+ another, you get involved in a lot of special-case scenarios, that
+ frankly, you can do without.
 
  Yes! Definately. I view each object as being the same. Some objects may
wish to communicate with an external application. This may be controlling a
collection of peripherals attached to a user or be doing some heavy
simulation task, or monitoring some other real world situation - eg air traffic control where the location of planes in real space is monitored by radar and then the 'virtual planes' in VR space are told to update their position accordingly.
			Dave
-- 
Dave Snowdon
Department of Computer Science   Tel:    (UK) 061 275 5717
Manchester University            E-mail: snowdond@cs.man.ac.uk
M13 9PL U.K.                          or snowdond@uk.ac.man.cs

  The Devil may care... But I don't mind (T.S.o.M.)