From: psantangeli@alias.com (Peter Santangeli)
Subject: Re: Where are the auto manufacturers?
Date: 	Tue, 9 Jun 1992 10:30:14 -0400
Organization: Alias Research Inc., Toronto ON Canada



The auto manufacturers are living in the same place that most large design
houses are. The real world.

Virtual Reality is destined to be an important technology. No doubt one day
people will do a lot of real work with it. That day is not here yet.

Over the last year my collegues and I have had extensive discussions with
auto manufacturers, and other people who depend on design, about applications
of VR. The reaction has been (almost without exception) "Neat technology. Let
us know when it can produce ray traced images at workstation resolution in
real time."

Cars (and planes etc.) are quite expensive to design. They are far, far more
expensive to produce. A bad decision at the design stage can easily cost 
millions of dollars.

"But wait!!, then use VR to help you design!" say all of the VR-heads.

Wrong. [insert game show buzzer here].

There is no way that any large company is going to trust million dollar
decisions to a process that depends on peering through plastic lenses at
CGA quality images updated 5 times a second (if you're lucky).

Instead, they will simply hire a modeling team to create a life size,
perfect looking clay model. Yes, it can cost many thousands of dollars to
do. So what. It will save them millions. If they are interested in the
interior, they will create an interior mockup.

It's much easier to get management to sit inside a mockup, than to have them
strap on eyephones.

I'm sure this situation will eventually change, but don't let the hype and
misinformation fool you. We're slowly making progress, but we're not there
yet. The technology has a long way to go before it will be more than a 
gimmick for selling kitchens.


Pete.

PS: Trust me. I make my living writing VR software :-)