From: dudasj@rpi.edu (Joel Schostok Dudas)
Subject: APPS: Environmental VR
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 19:16:47 GMT
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY



  I'm no VR expert, and I don't play one on TV either, but I am
interested greatly in this technology as it applies to other fields.
More specifically, I was recently wondering about 2 things...

1) What sorts of applications are there towards VR applications in
environmental technology?

2) Is there much VR research geared toward the creation of worlds
where the normal "laws" are simply not valid?  I mean this in a far
more abstract sense than just the obvious things, such as
zero-gravity, popping into people's bodies, or other such things.
What I am getting at is the possible effects VR could have on time &
relativity, possible sixth and seventh senses, the notion of swapping
light and sounds with their respective sensory centers, re-creation of
past experiences (time-travel in a virtual sense) by extraction of
memory from the brain and applying it to a virtual world,
communication with one's own bodily functions (VR "yoga"), or other
such things your imagination may come up with.  I am not looking for
technical info or current technology necessarily, but I am interested
in finding out if any of the current VR research has these long-term
goals in mind?

My VR background is only as deep as Howard Rheingold's book, an
article or 2, and my brain.

Joe D.
dudasj@rpi.edu