HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dstamp@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Dave Stampe-Psy+Eng)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: TECH: Text interfaces
Date: 22 Jul 92 03:10:10 GMT
Organization: University of Waterloo
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



jwt!bbs-airwick@peora.sdc.ccur.com (Eric Van Hensbergen) writes:

>Certainly a nice text window system that overlays itself on the
>environment would do the trick, but it seems to me that this would
>play nasty tricks on both speed and on the shutter glasses.
>
>Effectively, it would seem we would need to shut down the environment
>(at least from the users' perspective) whenever he needed to give
>input from the keyboard (I believe this is how REND386 handles text
>i/o).  Is there any way around this????
>
>(Of course there is always Gibson's method of unmarked keyboards and perfect
>typists, but that would restrict alot of us from the VR interface. :)

If you're using Sega glasses, turning them off is probably best unless you
have a brightly lit keyboard.  For HMDs... you'd have to design them to be
"flip-up" unless you really had good resolution and perfect world-world
correspondences.

Perhaps the simplest way would be to just select from menus with the glove.
After all, 2 million Mac users can't be wrong (or can they?).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| My life is Hardware,                    |                              | 
| my destiny is Software,                 |         Dave Stampe          |
| my CPU is Wetware...                    |                              | 
| Anybody got a SDB I can borrow?         | dstamp@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca |
__________________________________________________________________________
From: bdel@well.sf.ca.us (Ben Delaney)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: JOB: Roadies for Virtuality system tour, Summer/Fall 1992, USA
Date: 23 Jul 92 07:53:20 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Jul23.175838.25619
Organization: University of Washington
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



*************************************************************
** Okay, folks, here's a real job opportunity, for as many **
**       as three people on each coast of the USA.         **
*************************************************************
 
A Boston-based company will by doing a tour of college campuses this
fall, showing 2 Virtuality systems (W Industries' VR game system).
They need 3 people in the northeast (preferably Boston/New York) and
later in the Fall, 3 on the west coast.
 
They are looking for people who can be roadies: travel with the
equipment, set it up, break it down. These people will also be called
upon to give lectures on the systems and VR in general. If you're
handy with a screwdriver and can give a good presentation, like to
travel and meet people, and want to get into VR on a paying basis,
this could be a dream gig.
 
To apply, and for more info call: Bob Davis, 800 225-4575 ext 999
(east coast time zone)
 
Have fun!
 
(This public service announcement provided by CyberEdge Journal.)


[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  Commercial postings are offered on sci.virtual-
worlds as a public service.  Their appearance here does not 
necessarily indicate endorsement by the moderators or by the USENET or 
its administrators. -- Bob Jacobson]
From: gt0418c@prism.gatech.edu (Shane Wm. McWhorter)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: TECH: Projecting LCD panels
Date: 22 Jul 92 05:12:45 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



Am I wrong, or are the new RGB video projectors using LCDs? Those
projectors are BRIGHT (and cheap). Are they are slide projectors with
LCDs? They are very lightweight, so I doubt they are anything like the
phosphor-based video projectors.

For $5,000 or less each, seems they would make great additions to
room-based VEs like CAVE... Throw in a few circular polarizers, and
you wouldn't have to time multiplex. Double your resolution with 4 of
them.

        Shane

 | Shane Wm. McWhorter | Graphics, Visualization, and Usability Center | 
 | shane@cc.gatech.edu | Georgia Institute of Technology               |
 |                     | Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0355                   |  
 | Psychophysics, Displays and User Performace in Virtual Environments |
From: sfg@doc.imperial.ac.uk (Stephen Goddard)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: OFFER Re: Steve Hayden's trip to Europe
Date: 23 Jul 92 11:09:46 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Jul23.180021.25760
Organization: University of Washington
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



Steve recently posted a news articles stating that he is interested in
conatcting Europeans working in VR.

I would be very willing to be a contact in London for him and perhaps
recommend a few sights etc..

If you could pass this message on to him, I would be grateful.

Thanks,

Steve

--------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Goddard,                VOICE:     071 589 5111 ext 5032
Department of Computing,        Int.: +44 71 589 5111 ext 5032  
Imperial College,             FACSIMILE:          071 581 8024
180 Queens Gate,                Int.:          +44 71 581 8024
London SW7 2BZ,               EMAIL:          sfg@doc.ic.ac.uk
United Kingdom.                 JANET:        sfg@uk.ac.ic.doc
--------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: jlb31348@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Jim Brain)
Subject: TECH: U of I Powerglove update 7-17 and 7-20-92
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 14:56:12 GMT


Again, I have missed a posting, but this is my long awaited summer
vacation after 8 straight semesters of school, so I guess that is a
good excuse.

Friday, nothing happened except a small discussion on the net over
whether ACM at UIUC will distribute or sell rights to others.  If we
do let others do the product, it will be in tandem to our
distribution, since the goal is to show students how to go from idea
to product, and letiting someone else do the hard work of all the
marketing would defeat that purpose.  However, we may not be able to
meet demand, so I have considered supplanting our production with
other companies' production.

Today, I have a few questions and a few comments.  First, a few people
have called me with questions concerning the parallel interface in its
many derivatives, so I will forward a question I have no idea about:

        One person called me to ask for help in hooking an Amiga up to a
        Powerglove.  He said that the unit would come on and beep once, but
        no flashing lights or otherwise.  He said he was using a hack from
        some book or magazine, so if you have the same interface, please email
        me and I will forward the info.

        I need to know if there is some other hookup for rs232 besides the
        DB25 and MAC adapters.

Comments:

                I found out that there is a demo of a glove and an SGI at
SIGGRAPH, so I hope everyone who can go, should see it if possible.  I assume
that it will demonstrate the usefulness of the glove.  It will be on Monday.
NCSA at the U of I is doing it.

                I talked to Michael Starks at 3D-TV, and we went over the 
various aspects of my design.  He would like to help me market it, or at least
offer it to his customers, so I am thinking.  He also said that I probably did
not need to worry about FCC if my device is passive, so I will check.

                Martin Simon said that he does indeed have a source for the 
glasses, so hold on and I will get a price for you.  You will still have to add
on shipping, but We will know in the next few days.   I am not sure who will
actually be selling them, but I suppose I can put them in my order form, and
then pass te money along to whomever sells them with an address. 

                I am going to try a different approach to getting an answer 
from AGE, so I will post my progress as I go along.  This wednesday will be two
weeks delay, so I am getting impatient.


That is all.  I will keep you updated.

Jim

-- 
Jim Brain, Power Glove Serial Interface Project Leader (for the summer)
brain@cs.uiuc.edu
Yes, my last name REALLY is BRAIN!
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: s047@sand.sics.bu.oz.au (Jeremy Lee)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: TECH: Text interfaces
Date: 26 Jul 92 09:09:22 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Jul26.075001.9275
Organization: University of Washington
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



In article <Brrssy.Kty@watserv1.waterloo.edu> you write:
>jwt!bbs-airwick@peora.sdc.ccur.com (Eric Van Hensbergen) writes:
>
>>Effectively, it would seem we would need to shut down the environment
>>(at least from the users' perspective) whenever he needed to give
>>input from the keyboard (I believe this is how REND386 handles text
>>i/o).  Is there any way around this????
>
>Perhaps the simplest way would be to just select from menus with the glove.
>After all, 2 million Mac users can't be wrong (or can they?).

Most certainly they can!!! Archimedes users on the other hand....

I think I've solved that problem too, along with the basic problem of
guesture recognition, but I as yet haven't done any testing, and I
wouldn't mind turing it into a thesis or paper when the time came. But,
if all goes well, I might eventually announce a doable, simple way to
implement textual input within a VR. (With no recourse to external
keyboards, or VR keyboards on which, given the lack of tactical
response, it would be difficult to type on.)

Let me work on it for a month or so, and see if it's already been
done..

***********************************************************************
*    . Jeremy Lee s047@sand.sics.bu.oz.au    Student of Everything    *
*   /|            "Where the naked spotless intelect is without       *
*  /_|              center or circumference. Look to the light,       *
* /  |rchimedes      Leland, look to the light" - Dale Cooper         *
***********************************************************************
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: Neil A Haldar <nhaldar@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: INDUSTRY: Ono-Sendai MONDO ad
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 13:02:11 GMT



Everybody remember the company from William Gibson's _Neuromancer_
that built the Hosaka cyberdecks?

Check out MONDO 2000 Issue #7... page 7.

It's a full page color ad for the Ono-Sendai corporation.

No joking.

It's a neat-o graphic, with an hourglass and the O-S "logo", I
believe.

They've got a phone number in the ad, 415/387-OSVR.  I called and got
a recording of something like, "You've reached the Ono-Sendai
Corporation.  At this time we have no product literature to send
anyone.  However, you may leave you name and address after the tone
and we'll send you a brochure when we get them."  Okay, it went
_something_ like that, so that's NOT a quote.

Wow...  Ono-Sendai.  It's a real company.  Maybe that Hosaka isn't
that far away after all.

-Neil
nhaldar@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
neilh@well.sf.ca.us
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: dstamp@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Dave Stampe-Psy+Eng)
Subject: Re: TECH: A discussion update for newcomers: distributed worlds
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 13:20:22 GMT


thinman@netcom.com (Technically Sweet) writes:
>
>
>On mip-maps: they are successively condensed versions of a pixmap.
>Simple version: a coarse-grain version that's an average of (say) four
>pixels, and a larger pixmap that has the rest of each pixel.  To build
>higher and higher res versions of an image, you add in the successive
>deltas.  Since deltas have lower ranges than the full pixel, you can
>store deltas in smaller units, say 8 bits for an 24-bit pixel.
>
>This gives a small representation of a coarse version of a pixmap, but
>takes more and more work to get a larger version.  Real-time texture
>mapping requires a fixed amount of time per pixel.  As a target
>surface gets larger the mip-map technique requires an escalating
>number of operations per pixel.

Well, mip-maps are more useful for another reason:  anti-alising of 
textures.  If you simply sample the original, you get some weird
effects at large distances.  To prevent this, you could average several
pixels from the texture map (expensive) or use a pre-averaged pixel
from the mip-map segment with the correct resolution.  If you fudge a
bit and don't average several sections of the mip-map together, the 
speed is almost the same as without anti-aliasing.

The mip-maps take 4x as much storage as the original texture, however.
And using them as a standard for network VR is silly, since all you need
is the hi-res section and you can regenerate the rest.  Even better would 
be a selection of predefined textures, and an option to download special
textures or draw them (i.e text).

Of course, the real problem with textures is speed.  The 3D game
"Castle Wolfenstein" is an exception, but it uses only symmetrical
upright polygons (by constrainibg the viewpoint) so can do full-line
copies at the same resolution.  A real texture-mapping system will be
slower, due to its need to compute magnifications in 2 dimensions.
For example "Ultima Underworld" uses such mapping on rectangular
polys and gets several frames per second, but is about 4x as slow as
Wolfenstein.  Neither of these games use mip-maps or support general polys.

The only way textures will be realtime at present is if only a few textured
surfaces (and small ones at that) are used.  But, as they say, "if you
don't like what you see, wait a bit".  Hardware should fix this problem
too in a year or so.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| My life is Hardware,                    |                              | 
| my destiny is Software,                 |         Dave Stampe          |
| my CPU is Wetware...                    |                              | 
| Anybody got a SDB I can borrow?         | dstamp@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca |
__________________________________________________________________________
From: jlb31348@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Jim Brain)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: TECH: U of I Powerglove update 7-22 and 7-2492
Date: 24 Jul 92 21:43:40 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Jul26.074501.8799
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu


Well, It has been two weeks since I stopped production, but in two weeks
or
less we will know whether we can go or not.  So, at least the wait has an
end.

I will be on vacation from 8-2 tgo 8-9, so please ask all questions before
then. FYI, I will be in Florida at EPCOT, so if anyone has a number I can 
access the network from, I would appreciate it.

I leave campus on the 14th, but assuming we get a go ahead, then I will

send the board film prepaid to the manufacturer and have him  ship to the
board stuffer.  All that will take one month, so that will put the unit out (
keep fingers crossed) on the verge of September, so take heart.

Not much happening here, but I have been in contact with 3D-TV and Martin
Simon, who are looking at glasses.  Will post goodies as I get them.  I
have asked for an extension on the PCVR article, so It will be out in October
if the unit actually gets going.  

I have been working on other projects (that I neglected early on), so I 
apologize for the delay in mail responses and postings.  I will try to be
a better mail person hence forth.  I have found numerous other uses for my
unit in my other projects, so I see this thing as a multipurpose device.

Have only received a few responses about more frame rate beyond 30.  Does
most think this is OK?

Well, gotta go for now, but keep me informed.  I would like to compile a
list of what everyone will be using the PGSI for, as well as responses from
those who use a parllel glove interface now, what are you doing with it?

When the school year returns, I will be turning this post over to Ben Gross, 
who is much more talented in the VR arena than I.  He will keep you informed of
all the stuff that happens.   Give him a grand welcome when he arrives.


JIm Brain

-- 
Jim Brain, Power Glove Serial Interface Project Leader (for the summer)
brain@cs.uiuc.edu
Yes, my last name REALLY is BRAIN!
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: Jeremy Lee <s047@sand.sics.bu.oz.au>
Subject: Re: TECH: Projecting LCD panels.
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 09:20:04 GMT



In article <BrtqB1.D7E@watserv1.waterloo.edu> you write:
>
>
>gt0418c@prism.gatech.edu (Shane Wm. McWhorter) writes:
>
>>Am I wrong, or are the new RGB video projectors using LCDs? Those
>>projectors are BRIGHT (and cheap). Are they are slide projectors with
>>LCDs? They are very lightweight, so I doubt they are anything like the
>>phosphor-based video projectors.
>
>Alas, you can't really add polarizers to LCD panels: they already have
>polarizers!  You'd have to add a diffuser or something to remove the
>polarization, or lay one projector on its side (or rotate the panel
>inside).  It would be VERY difficult to get the manufacturer to make
>you a panel with flipped polarizers, and they're glued to the
>(fragile) panel glass so you can't remove them and rotate them
>yourself...

Ahem... Actually, you can. It's a relativley simple matter to
re-polarise the light in any orientation, by using two polarising
filters, instead of one.

Place the first filter at the orientation that you want the final
emitted light to have, and then insert the second one between the first
and the LCD display (or whatever light source) and rotate it until the
transmitted light is brightest.

Taking the worst case, where the light coming from the LCD is polarised
90' from the orientation that you require, inserting the second filter
at 45' will 'rotate' the orientation of the polarised light by 45', and
the second filter will 'rotate' the polarisation by another 45', ending
up with the full 90' rotation that you require. (It doesn't actually
"rotate" the polarisation, but only allows... ah, skip it. Look in any
good physics textbook for the reason...)

Note that in almost any case, you will get some decreace of the
transmitted light. Also, in some cases, you will only need one filter.

***********************************************************************
*    . Jeremy Lee s047@sand.sics.bu.oz.au    Student of Everything    *
*   /|            "Where the naked spotless intelect is without       *
*  /_|              center or circumference. Look to the light,       *
* /  |rchimedes      Leland, look to the light" - Dale Cooper         *
***********************************************************************
From: billc@Apple.COM (Bill Cockayne)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: ADMIN: VR on ftp.apple.com
Date: 23 Jul 92 18:34:35 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Jul24.050845.16992
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



For those of you who are interested, a new archive of docs and such is being
created on:

ftp.apple.com

Though I would like it to become THE repository for Macintosh VR information, 
its present incarnation is of things I find interesting. I also hope to
build a major sites list for VR software and articles.

The path is

/pub/vr

it will be locked until sometime on Friday, July 24, 1992 while I set up 
everything. (have some patience)

If you have things that you would like to see up, send requests to me and
I will try to comply. This site will be redundant in some areas.

bill cockayne
Apple Computer, Inc.
net: billc@apple.com

DISCLAIMER: I am not speaking as a representative of Apple Computer and this
archive is not directly related to work going on at Apple Computer.

[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  Thanks, Bill, for this service! -- Bob Jacobson]
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: cyor@logos.uwaterloo.ca (                )
Subject: TECH REQUEST: Virtual Reality stuffs for the Apple Quadra
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 02:56:40 GMT



Hi!

I recall reading an adv somewhere about Virtual Reality
software/hardware for the Apple Quadra.  Can anybody send me more
information?

Thanks...

                                                                Jimmy...
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: tomasa@hemul.nada.kth.se (Tomas Arvidsson)
Subject: Re: INFO: Comments on Uk machines for VR (Well arcade games)
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, NADA
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 21:50:49 GMT


In <1992Jul26.074440.8682@u.washington.edu> S_URIARTE@irav1.ira.uka.de (|S| Juan
 Uriarte) writes:

>Has anyone of you heard of the VIRTUALITY (I think) machines?

>The stand-up one and another,where you just sat there with 2 standard
>joysticks.Although they were arcade machines they could have been used for
>other pourposes.An Amiga 3000 was the heart for the system,assisted by 2 TI
>graphical coprocessors.The software was distributed by CD-ROM.You had sound AND
>mocrophones in the headsets.Up to 16 machines could be interconnected.
>You could have one for $20000!!!

>Is this information correct? 

The machines are built by a company called W Industries and the heart of each
system is an 68040 powered Amiga 3000 with two TI34020 graphicprocessors
(probably two DMI-Resolver cards), one for each eye.

There are five different models and the cheapest goes for $29,750+.

>Yon

/Tomas

-- 
Tomas Arvidson                                               /// 
d91tar@minsk.docs.uu.se | tomasa@nada.kth.se                ///
cbmehq!cbmswe!sprawl!tomasa@cbmvax.commodore.com        \\\///
Expressed opinions are mine unless stated otherwise      \XX/
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: mtj@babar.asd.sgi.com (Michael Jones)
Subject: TECH: MIP-maps and Coordinate-resolution
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 21:06:22 GMT



ON MIP-MAPS:

dstamp@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Dave Stampe-Psy+Eng) writes:

|> The mip-maps take 4x as much storage as the original texture, however.
In fact, MIP-maps only require an extra 1/3x (total is then 4/3x) storage.
It is summed-area tables that require 4x the base storage.

|> Of course, the real problem with textures is speed.

Not so. The SGI RealityEngine produces 80, 160, or 320 million
textured anti-aliased pixels per second. This is enough for 7000
textured, anti- aliased polygons at 30Hz, even at 1280x1024 resolution
-- at workstation prices. There are textured systems available from
other vendors, What's the problem with texture speed?

ON COORDINATE RESOLUTION:

hlab@milton.u.washington.edu (Jeremy Lee) and others argue for 128-bit
coordinates. The common solution in visual simulation is to use 32-bit
fp coordinates as offsets from a specified 64-bit fp origin. Then as
objects or the eyepoint moves through the database, the 64-bit fp eye
location is subtracted from each "relocatable origin" to produce a
32-bit, sp offset which is added to the object's world-space matrix.

This works fine because the dynamic range of a single frame's
coordinates do not exceed 32-bit fp limits -- at least in normal
visual simulation.

This implementation is essentially the segment+offset .vs linear
address space issue resolved in favor of segments due to the
consistent spatial locality of visual scenes and the desire for
reduced data transmission.

-- Michael Jones    mtj@sgi.com  415.390.1455  M/S 7U-550
                    Silicon Graphics, Advanced Systems Division
                    2011 N. Shoreline Blvd., Mtn. View, CA 94039-7311