HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: t9114209@phillip.edu.au
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: TECH: Single Screen HMD.
Date: 4 Oct 92 17:46:11 GMT
Organization: RMIT (Bundoora Campus)
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



In article <1992Sep30.030438.10223@NeoSoft.com>, martink@NeoSoft.com

> ...Or use Amigas, The Amiga 1000 had a Composite NTSC Video RCA jack.
> The other can use a $50.00 (or less) RGB->Composite Video Adapter.
>  
> I realize that everyone will be trying to put there mouths where there
> money is, but, I think in the arena of Low-Budget VR, the Amiga REALLY
> shines.  Especially with the A4000 being released.  (I am already
> drooling over it)

I have been trying to do VR on an Amiga for over a year now, and quite
frankly it seems almost time to give up and move onto a 386 with a
fast VGA card. The Amiga chip bus is just too slow to allow any really
fast graphics to be done. (esp. texture mapping where every pixel
needs to be determined and written too - even in low resoultion).
This is also due to the way the amiga uses bitplanes, and an IBM card
would use one byte to represent each pixel.

Polygon generation is another story, it is possible to do polygons
using the amiga to do all the calculations and the blitter to
draw/fill/move them, but you still hit the limitation of the blitter
(runs at 3.04MHz). You are also limited to only a few colours (<8)
without slowing the frame rate down unacceptably.

I probably will change platforms to IBM, if I can find any VGA-PAL
cards to work with my home-made HMD. (I agree how easy it was too hook
up the Amiga to extrenal video devices with easy access to the dor
clock, and also ready available chips to convert RGB-PAL/NTSC)

Seeyou,
Peter

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Koch (Comp.Sci.Student)   <SPACE> Q: Why did the Cybernaut cross the road?
E-mail: t9114209@phillip.edu.au <4RENT> A: Cause he was jacked into the chicken
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: dudley@cebaf4.cebaf.gov (John Dudley)
Subject: TECH: Problem with HMD 
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu
Organization: CEBAF
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 18:26:41 GMT


I am working on an HMD that uses 2 small LCD televisions, and two
magnifying-type lenses.  My problem is
at this time I only want to project the same image to both screens, yet,
when I do this, the
image will not come into focus as one.
 
What is needed to do this?  Basically, I want to be able to use both
eyes looking at the same picture.
I don't necessarily need the stereoscopic effect yet, and WANT to use
the mini-tv's because of their
light weight.
 
Thanks!
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: weh@sei.cmu.edu (Bill Hefley)
Subject: Re: PUBS: "Computerized Reality" or "Embodied Virtuality", anyone ?
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: Software Engineering Institute
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 14:12:09 GMT



In article <1992Oct7.065522.28932@u.washington.edu>
craig@world.std.com (Craig Hubley) writes:

>CACM has decided not to referee its issue on the topic of computer
>systems that embed or overlay their information onto the real world
>(i.e. VR turned inside out) such as HUDs, etc.  The issue will appear
>in July'93 (Communications of the ACM = CACM, by the way) 

This is slightly in error, and I'd like to clear up any confusion.
There has been no decision not to referee this issue, in fact it is
already underway.

I received a message from the Executive Editor (Diane Crawford)
recently which read in part,

"CACM would like to thank everyone interested in participating in the
special issue on Computerized Reality. Authors and topics for this
issue have been selected. Limitations of (deadline) time and (page)
space prohibit us for considering additional abstracts or entries.
Thanks again, look for the July '93 issue for this featured material."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Hefley, SEI-2218, Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213  U.S.A. 
Office: (412) 268-7793 , Fax: (412) 268-5758, internet: weh@sei.cmu.edu
From: mcint_wn@archsci.arch.su.EDU.AU (Walter N P MCIntyre )
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: TECH REQUEST: Info on HMDs, Voxel VR, and Open System "Cyberterm"
Date: 10 Oct 92 05:57:09 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Oct10.180408.18677
Organization: University of Washington
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu



I am currently working on some VR research as part of my Masters in
Design Science at the University of Sydney and would like to receive
any PAPERS, COMMENTS, RESEARCH IDEAS, TECH REPORTS, FUTURE DIRECTIONS
specifically related to:

HMD TECHNOLOGY
including direct to retinal laser scanning and teleprescence.

VOXEL VR component structure system.

and

THE OPEN SYSTEM CYBERTERM virtual reality networking system.

PLEASE REPLY TO:


Peter Mcintyre
mcint_wn@archsci.arch.su.oz.au


********************************************************************************
**
CALL FOR PAPERS     CALL FOR PAPERS     CALL FOR PAPERS     CALL FOR PAPERS
********************************************************************************
**
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: piggy@hilbert.cc.utas.edu.au (La Monte Yarroll)
Subject: Re: PUBS: PCVR magazine, recommendation?
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Tasmania, Australia.
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 23:27:59 GMT


tyrone@wmsa.att.com (Tyrone Shiu) writes:

>Hi:

>I received an e-mail about a magazine call PCVR.  The topics sound
>interesting.  Is it worth subscribing?  Any comment is appreciated.

>[MODERATOR'S NOTE: I visited the PCVR booth at the Meckler VR 92
>conference and looked through the copies of PCVR there.  Yes, I highly
>recommend this journal (it's more like a quarterly book) for people
>working toward virtual worlds on PCs.  The depth of the material is
>truly impressive and the code looks spot on.  You have to believe, of
>course, that PCs are where this is all going.... -- Bob Jacobson]

My appologies to the publishers of PCVR--this is why I did not
continue my subscription beyond the first two issues:

My primary objection is the gee-whiz tone of the editorials.  I've
seen quite enough of the if-you-die-in-vr-do-you-die-for-real genre to
satisfy me for a lifetime.

The code listings in those issues are largely uncommented, and thus
of marginal use to me.  To be fair, I find most published listings to
be far too sparsely commented.

There was quite a plethora of technical information, but of varying
depth and clarity of presentation.  I did not find anything which I
did not already have better documented in my collection of FAQs and
READMEs.

The overall literary and editorial quality is about what I'd expect
from a high school newspaper.

I wish the publishers of PCVR good fortune; I will probably look at
their publication again in a year or so.  For the moment, I do not
feel I can justify to myself the cost of a subscription to PCVR.
--
La Monte H. Yarroll     Home:           piggy@baqaqi.chi.il.us
   Work:                piggy@hilbert.maths.utas.edu.au
   AKA:                 piggy@gargoyle.uchicago.edu
   Once upon a time:    postmaster@clout.chi.il.us
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: geoffrey@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz (Geoff Thomas)
Subject: PUBS: Wanting to get hold of HITL techreports
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu
Organization: Computer Science,University of Canterbury,New Zealand
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 02:54:30 GMT



I have a reference to some HITL tech reports from 1989 (I think),
and I'm wondering if it is possible to get hold of them via ftp or
email.

Any help much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Geoff Thomas                    geoffrey@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz
Computer Science Dept.
University of Canterbury
Private Bag                             +-------+
Christchurch                            | Oook! |
New Zealand                             +-------+



[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  I'm not sure that HIT Lab tech reports are online.
For information, send email to Kymerie Riggs, HIT Lab Administrator:

                kymerie@hitl.washington.edu

or Toni Emerson, librarian:

                diderot@hitl.washington.edu

                                                -- Bob Jacobson]
From: wave@waits.media.mit.edu (Michael B. Johnson)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: SCI: Object Programming Models (was Re: SCI: Object behavior in VR)
Date: 15 Oct 92 09:50:35 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Oct16.170747.7087
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu


Rolland Waters writes
> 
> In article <1992Oct13.050152.22539@u.washington.edu> bobp@hal.com (Bob  
Pendleton
> ) writes:
> > The main reason for using any kind of an interpreter is that (again
> > IMHO) sending program strings from one machine to another is a better
> > way to implement a protocol (the PostScript model) than just sending
> > commands (the X model).
> 
> A distributed system based on this programming model would be
> frightening to debug.  Even presuming there is no malice involved,
> when you have any more than a small number of modules interacting you
> need "firewalls" to keep bugs from travelling from place to place.
> With the program string model any new code can extend/interfere with
> the entire body of existing code.  The power of the PostScript model
> makes it very dangerous to use in a distributed environment.  (Note
> that PostScript is itself encapsulated by a send-command model.)
> 
> Most of the comments in this forum, particularly on programming
> models, tend to presume a small number of interacting components (e.g.
> world creator, world interpreter, interface & graphics box).  IMNSHO,
> most useful VR constructions will rely on lots of users interacting
> within a virtual world: training simulations, teleconferencing, and
> cyberspace all presume many independent interacting parties.
> 
> For example, the HIT Lab's VEOS is most applicable to a small number
> of closely associated entities.  I don't question the value of any of
> these models for interface & presentation research, but I don't feel
> that they are the way to go for really creating a world.
> 
> 
> Rolland Waters
> rwaters@spdg.com

But that's exactly the point.  I'd argue that you have no choice - 
the future will be filled with large systems with hundreds, thousands, 
hundreds of thousand of parts, communicating over the net.  The key
questions revolve not around how to build such systems, but how to 
debug them.

more later.

--

-->  Michael B. Johnson
-->  MIT Media Lab      --  Computer Graphics & Animation Group
-->  (617) 253-0663     --  wave@media-lab.media.mit.edu
-->  NeXT Mail accepted at  wave@nordine.media.mit.edu
From: snowdond@cs.man.ac.uk (Dave Snowdon)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: PUB: _Virtual Worlds,_ by Benjamin Wooley - a review
Date: 8 Oct 92 16:37:11 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Oct9.230951.10585
Organization: Dept Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K.
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



Here as promised, is my short review of the book "Virtual Worlds" by
Benjamin Woolley.

                                Dave


Title: Virtual Worlds: A Journey in Hype and Hyperreality
Author: Benjamin Woolley
Number of Pages: 274
Publisher: Blackwell
First Published: 1992
ISBN: 0-631-18214-4
Price: ?
Hardback

If you read this book expecting to read about the aspects of computer
graphics used in Virtual Reality then you will be disappointed. The
author (credited as being the person who `introduced the idea of
virtual reality to Britain') states that the aim of the book is to
examine two issues that underlie the emergence of Virtual reality as
one of the `big ideas' of the 1990's, these being: can anything be
simulated? and is reality a myth?  He hopes to show that there is a
reality and that virtual reality can help us recover it.

The first chapter gives a background to VR, with emphasis on the
SIGGRAPH '90 `Hip, hype, hope' panel session attended by Dr. Timothy
Leary, John Perry Barlow, Jaron Lanier & Myron Krueger among others.
The chapter continues with brief histories of some of the attendees as
well as of the PC industry. Quotes from Barlow and Leary add some
humour value to this chapter.

The book continues by describing several subject areas from quantum
physics to post-modernism to Graphical User interfaces.  Although the
topics are covered briefly the treatment of them is interesting and
readable. The Gulf War and Jean Baudrillard (author of `The Gulf War
did not take place') are used as an example of how the `real' war was
more visible on TV than the battlefield. Quantum physics is used to
show that the mechanistic model of reality is incorrect.

Finally the book concludes with the observation that the content of
the of a scene may is more important to reality than simply increasing
the resolution at which it is displayed - the author doubts the
eventual ability of VR to create any experience we desire. The author
believes that post-modernists are wrong that reality is dead, instead
reality is not the physical universe but in the abstract domain
revealed by mathematics and computation. Thus the computer with its
ability to simulate provides evidence that reality is still there.

This book is actually a reasonable read - some of the background
provided is interesting. However, if you want to find out about the
technology behind virtual reality then this is not the book for you.

-- 
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.)
From: young7905@iscsvax.uni.edu
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: INFO: Virtual Reality Locations
Date: 14 Oct 92 15:33:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: iscsvax.1992Oct14.103303.7630
Organization: University of Northern Iowa
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu


I live in Cedar Falls Iowa and I am wondering where the nearest place to
experience Virtual Reality is. Also how much money does it cost to experience
it.

[Co-mode (Mark): I took the liberty of lowercasing this message.]
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: John Eagan <76130.2225@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: ADMIN: CompuServe changes
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 04:16:16 GMT



I'm pleased to announce that as of Thursday, October 8th, the new home
of the Virtual Reality area of CompuServe will be the new Graphics
Developers Forum (GO GRAPHDEV at ! prompt). This new forum is also the
new home of the "Stone Soup Group", the people responsible for the
ever-evolving freeware fractal generation program "Fractint", and the
POV-Ray development team, developers of the "POV-Ray" freeware
raytracer.

This move groups together the graphics freeware developers of
CompuServe together with more room for each group, along with a forum
name that reflects the more intensive focus of the new forum. Part of
this move will be the expansion of the VR area into 2 message and
library areas.  Section/library 10 of GRAPHDEV will be "VR Concepts",
and section/library 11 will be titled "VR Tech".

 _________________________________________________________________
| John Eagan                                                      |
| VR section leader                                               |
| Graphics Developers Forum                                       |
| CompuServe                                                      |
| compuserve:76130,2225                                           |
| internet:76130.2225@compuserve.com                              |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| "when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro"                 |
|                           - Hunter S. Thompson                  |
|_________________________________________________________________|
From: mark@cs.ualberta.ca (Mark Green)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: INFO: Seeking info on User Interfaces for Virtual Reality
Date: 14 Oct 92 18:17:11 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Oct16.170220.6017
Organization: University of Alberta
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu


In article <1992Oct12.153816.20074@pwa-b.uucp> marks@pwa-b.uucp (Evan R. Marks) 
writes:
>
>I am trying to come up with a good topic for my master's thesis, 
>and I have chosen Multimedia Interfaces for a Virtual World.
>
>If anyone has any good references to papers, topics, or books, please
>e-mail to me.  Also, if anyone has a better V-R topic that could be 
>explored, let me know.
>
>Thanx in advance for any info
>---Evan


Two good places to look for user interface papers related to Virtual
Reality are:

1) ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST)

2) CHI

Both of these conferences are sponsored by ACM and their proceedings
can be ordered from ACM.  Over the past few years both of these
conference have had a session of VR, and the papers tend to be
technical in nature.
From: bh419@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ted B Samsel)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: PHIL: Is driving a car employing VR?
Date: 15 Oct 92 12:57:07 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Oct16.170530.6686
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu



I recall some latterday '60s guru (maybe T. Leary) opining
that "When I drive the Studebaker, I am the Studebaker".
Hmmmm?
-- 
Ted....
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: thinman@netcom.com (Technically Sweet)
Subject: Re: SCI: Object behavior in VR
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu
Organization: International Foundation for Internal Freedom
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 18:33:09 GMT


Michael Almquist <squish@hitl.washington.edu> writes:

>Yes.  What can one do?  SmallTalk is the only package (to the best of
>my knowledge) that uses generation scavanging (NOT "generational" GC -
>its GS).

DEC's Scheme->C compiler uses a generational scavenger
("mostly-copying").  Self (a very nice Stanford/SUN
research project) uses one also.  FTP to self.stanford.edu
for more info.  Self is generally very slick.

>Yep, another good point and hopefully a good question: So?  Who came
>down from the mountain top and said data-flow is the key and the way?
>I hope it isn't - like most everything, dataflow has its strengths and
>weakness - we need to look further.

Of course!  I sauntered down from the mountain top
proclaiming only that incrementally compiled data-flow
diagrams are a nice way of implementing the low-level
continuous reaction functions of a VR environment.  One
classification of computer-human interaction (see the
articles on the Information Visualizer in CHI '91 for full
references) breaks it into 3 types: type 1 has a "round
trip" time of 1/10 second; this is "video game" kinesthetic
mode.  Type 2 responses are around 1 second and form the
trained quick-decision mode that you experience in deciding,
for example, how to walk through menus.  Type 3
interactions take 5-10-many seconds or minutes.  These are
the "stop and wait" interactions.

Simple arithmetic data-flow (not logical predicate or any
other kind) gives a nice system for doing the Type 1 interactions.
It handles continuous non-modal changes of the environment.
Data-flow does this well because a) it can be implemented
very efficiently with predictable compute time per loop,
and b) because the changes in the world which give kinetic
feedback are all continuous, so you can get away with
describing them completely via simple arithmetic.

Under the architecture we've been talking about, you download
an interpreted program which creates a database of actions
that implement Type 1 with no further intervention by the
program.  Type 2 interactions are implemented by having
the Type 1 signal the program, "Hey!  Wake up!  We need
to change the world!".  Type 2 and especially Type 3
can involve shipping data or requests over the network
and waiting for the results.

Under my working surmise, the interpreted (Scheme) program
has no direct access to the deck hardware.  It can only
create the database of dataflow "circuits" which do the
actual work.  To make a pop-up menu pop up, it should
probably set the menu up beforehand in the simulator and
enable it when the time comes.  Of course, this runs into
RAM limitations.  Cest la vie.

-- 

Lance Norskog

Data is not information is not knowledge is not wisdom.
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: wixer!wixer.cactus.org!pacoid@cs.utexas.edu (Paco Xander Nathan)
Subject: Re: WHO: Anna Couey?
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 17:05:45 GMT



In article <1992Oct1.080304.6887@u.washington.edu>
zyzzy@milton.u.washington.edu (Zyzzy Galore) writes:

>I would like to get in touch with Anna Couey, who is Network
>Coordinator for Arts Wire and involved with the Art Com Electronic
>Network.
>She was at "Textures in Cyberspace" in Austin last Sunday, which BTW,
>I heard was a great get together.

Try: couey@well.sf.ca.us

And yes, the Textures in Cyberspace panel was great..

pacoid.

[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  How 'bout a report, y'all? -- Bob Jacobson]
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: diego@minerva.st.dsi.unimi.it (Diego Montefusco)
Subject: PUBS: Jaron Lanier and Hattori's books??
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 21:43:10 GMT


First
-----
Some times ago I read Jaron Lanier was writing his own book about VR.
Does anybody knows anything about it?

Second
------
Has Mr. Hattori's book, What's VR, been published in English? Is so, for
which publisher?

Thanks very much,

Diego Montefusco


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Diego Montefusco                        B E W A R E ! !
  Via Pirano, 4                        PLEASE REPLY ME TO:
  20127 Milano                    montefus@ghost.dsi.unimi.it
    ITALIA                           (not to the account
phone:  +2  27001467                 I'm e-mailing from!)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: wex@spdcc.com (Alan Wexelblat)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: TECH/INFO: Virtual Technologies Cyberglove
Date: 16 Oct 92 16:55:21 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Oct16.171209.7903
Organization: Electric Blue Lighting
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu


I would like to hear peoples' experiences with using the Virtual Technologies
product called "CyberGlove" and its associated software.

Please email me; if there is interest I will post a summary to the group.
If you want your report to be anonymous, please let me know and I will
strip headers when I post the summary.

-- 
--Alan Wexelblat, Reality Hacker and Cyberspace Bard
Electric Blue Lighting                          wex@spdcc.com
Voice: 617-661-1159, Pager: 617-945-1842        wexelblat.chi@xerox.com
"'Bambi' is a state of mind"

[Co-mod (Mark): Please post to the group!  The info would be very useful
        to have stashed in the archives.  Thanks!]
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: sharkey@robots.ox.ac.uk (Paul Sharkey)
Subject: TECH: HMDs?
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: Robotics Research Group, Engineering Science Dept, Oxford, UK.
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 15:49:22 GMT



I am looking for any infor on head mounted displays that are
commercially available, or can be not too difficultly pieced together.

My specific video format is the Euro CCIR, but info on RS170 would
also be welcome.  We plan to relay images from ccd cameras to the
user.  Is there anyone else into this sort of stuff?

Thanks

Paul.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul M Sharkey                      Office:  +44 (0)865 273 150   
Reactive Vision Laboratory          Lab:     +44 (0)865 273 168
Robotics Research Group             Fax:     +44 (0)865 273 908
Dept Engineering Science  
Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PJ          Email:   sharkey@uk.ac.ox.robots
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds