From: mreaney@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: TECH: Low-end VR, Mac
Date: 17 Mar 92 11:18:09 CST
Message-ID: <1992Mar17.111809.38594@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services



I would like to suggest a couple of products to those that are interested
in exploring VR on the Mac and perhaps don't have piles af cash laying around,
though they sould be of interest to anyone. Let me first say that I have no
commercial interest in either product and am only interested in sharing the
info.

The first is a architectural based modeler called Virtus WalkThrough from
the Virtus corp. This application lets one create environments, both interior
and exterior, light them with multiple light sources, add furniture, trees
or whatever, then walkthrough them using the mouse to steer. One can combine
mouse movements with control keys to move forward, backward, up, down, turn
right and left, or look up or down. You can record your movements for future
animations or not. The street price is around $250, pretty hard to beat.
If any of you techno-wizard can think of a way to interface it with eyephones
or glove let me know. Virtus is alledgedly coming out with an advanced version
called Virtus vision that allows for more realistic rendering through
surface mapping. Of cource it will be correspondingly more expensive.

The second is a game called Spectre, in which you drive a tank-like
vehicle through a "Cyber-space arena" around obsticles looking to blow-up
bad guy tanks.(de-rez them) The animation in this game is amazingly smooth
and the enemy tanks respond intelligently to your moves. The real beauty
of this game is that it is networkable over plain-old apple talk!
Just think, interactive VR for only around $45! There are different network
games that can be played but the main idea is that you and your friends
each control a tank and you have tournements. The names of your friends
appear over their tanks so you know who you are shooting. I would think that
if one could hookup four or five computers, each equiped with eyephones,
you could have one heck of a VR party. Apparently, the company even sells
Spectre party packs complete with invitations and several copies of the game.

I am in the process of putting togeather some goggles and could use some
advice. I have found cheap LCD TVs at K-Mart and am planning to use
Photographer's loupes for the optics. These give 8x or 10x magnification
but the angle of view still seemes a bit narrow. Has anyone a better solution
for the optics? An another novice question. I have seen archived the specs for
interfacing a powerglove to the Mac. But once hooked up what will it do?
is it a substitute for the mouse or do I need some unnamed software to do
VR tricks with it?

That's all for now
================Mark Reaney. Dept of Theatre and Film, Univ. of Kansas====