HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dejohnso@asylum.cs.utah.edu (David Johnson)
Subject: TECH: Orientation from the Polhemus
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 22:51:23 GMT



First, thanks to all of you who sent in suggestions for getting the
Polhemus hooked up to an SGI.  It is now running nicely, except...

I am getting some strange results from orientation - it doesn't seem
to be able to tell when the sensor is in the range -90 to -180 (it
freezes at -90 then flips to +180).  And this is for all 3 axis.  I
was wondering if other people have had this problem.  

The documentation says it should be able to go from -229 to 229
degrees.  Or are most people reading in quaternions instead of just
using the default sixtuple of position and roll, pitch and yaw?

Please send me email at dejohnso@asylum.cs.utah.edu.

Thanks,
David
From: na0s+@andrew.cmu.edu (Nicolas Alejandro Arauz)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: TECH: Creative Labs' Video Blaster card
Date: 15 Aug 92 17:44:48 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Aug17.064904.24564
Organization: University of Washington
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



Does anyone know anything about the new Video Blaster card?  It allows
video input of NTSC, PAL, and SECAM input from one ad I've seen!  All
for <$500.  But my question is, and I'm afraid I may be disappointed,
is that I can't seem to find out if the card will OUTPUT in *ANY* of
those modes.  I have a feeling it may only be an input card though.

If it could output video, then it would have some nice HMD
possibilities.  Does anyone have any more info on this?  I'm afraid
though that it's only going to be to input video.  Also, how come I
haven't heard any mention of using two Citizen Color LCD TV monitors
for HMD displays.  Each is under $200 and 2.8" large (next to 2.2" for
Casio).
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: broehl@sunee.uwaterloo.ca (Bernie Roehl)
Subject: Re: DESIGN: Doors between virtual worlds
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 19:56:42 GMT



I just got back from holidays, and there are close to a hundred
messages to wade through!  Oh well, may as well get started...

In article <BstptD.Ezq@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca>
dstamp@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca (Dave Stampe-Psy+Eng) writes:

>Option 2 is to set up an additional renderer, make an image of the
>region, and copy it into the image.

Essentially a "dynamic texture map" which would render the image into
a buffer, and then texture that image onto some polygonal surface.

        Bernie Roehl, University of Waterloo Electrical Engineering Dept
        Mail: broehl@sunee.UWaterloo.ca
        BangPath: uunet!watmath!sunee!broehl
        Voice:  (519) 885-1211 x 2607 [work]
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: ristad@dynamic.Princeton.EDU (Eric Sven Ristad)
Subject: TECH: device driver for virtex cyberglove
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: Princeton University, Dept. of Computer Science
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 14:44:15 GMT



Can someone please tell me of public-domain device driver for the
Virtex Cyberglove on the sparcstation or on the hp9000 series 700?  I
need to determinisitically time stamp the glove data, so probably I
will need the source code for the driver (so I can modify it).

Thank you,
Eric
From: mailrus!gatech!media.mit.edu!wave@uunet.UU.NET (Michael B. Johnson)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: PUBS: A great book - Snow Crash
Date: 18 Aug 92 21:03:17 GMT
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



I know people don't want to hear about random cyberpunk Gibson-
wannabee books here (that's what alt.cyber-whatever is for, right?),
but I just finished a great sci-fi book that was very nicely informed
as to what a reasonable virtual world might be.

The book is called "Snow Crash" by Neil Stephenson (I might have the
author's name spelled wrong...)

Anyway, it's a great book.  Highly recommended.

-->  Michael B. Johnson
-->  MIT Media Lab      --  Computer Graphics & Animation Group
-->  (617) 253-0663     --  wave@media-lab.media.mit.edu
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: georgef@endeavor18.wv.tek.com (George Forman = GHF)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: TECH: OIFF an object interchange file format
Date: 21 Aug 92 22:18:02 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



I have a few suggestions for OIFF:

1. You might include a version # in the header.  This will probably
save grief later.

2. In the 2-D world, people have found it very useful to include a
bounding box in the Postscript files.  This saves scanning the whole
thing to find out if it's in the field of vision or whatever.  Also
aids scaling-- suppose I want to put Jim's world in a shoebox on my
shelf.

3. Perhaps some notion of subroutines could be incorporated to reduce
data size.  A 1 page description in a slightly higher level graphics
language can produce a scene filled with 1000s of polygons.  The OIFF
files will blow up geometrically-- each of the 40 houses each have 15
boxes which each have 6 sides.  A very low-level OIFF will have to
represent an awful lot of data, but a slightly higher-level OIFF can
be much smaller.  I suggest such simple languages as found in computer
graphics course textbooks.

4. The file could specify the 6 light reflecting characteristics of a
flat surface (RGB reflected & RGB diffuse) & let the *user's* display
program decide whether to just quickly use a flat color model (just
using the first 3 numbers), or to produce a beautifully lighted model
using all 6.  To save space, suggest that the OIFF define a color map
which the polygons then use by reference.  In the future, this color
map could become sophisticated w/ texture & tiling information.  You
certainly wouldn't want each polygon to have to specify all this
information explicitly each time-- takes a lot of polygons of the same
color to make a blue tree.  These are probably frills for the second
version.

5. Suggest making the file more readable & printable.  Right now it
seems extremely vertical-- could waste a lot of printer paper.
Wouldn't hurt to use a tab character between components of a vertex &
newline after each vertex, or commas and tabs.

6. I'm not so certain that things should be broken up according to the
5 senses: SOUN,VISI,HAPT,OLFA,TAST.  Yes, it's stable over centuries,
but I'd think it'd be better to break things up according to the
virtual devices on which they are to be displayed.  The 3-D world
device (probably HUD, but perhaps not.), a much higher quality 2-D
device (for text, explanations, detailed menus, high-resolution
pictures etc. which won't work well on HUD), general room lighting
device (RGB diffuse light? Strobe?), pack vibrator, floor vibrator,
room heater...?

Good luck,

  GHF
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: "Richard M. Coffey" <c-crm@math.utah.edu>
Subject: INDUSTRY: Nintendo & Sega?
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 04:17:20 GMT



Does anyone know anything about the home video game giants coming out with
HMD's or any VR related technologies?  If so, how close are they to coming 
out with it?  By the way, does anyone know LCD manufacturers who would
sell high definition LCD's to a couple of hacks?

merci beaucoup
-the richmeister-
Richard Coffey
email: c-crm@math.utah.edu

"How do you want your pixels, squircle or reverse polish polygonal?"


[MODERATOR'S NOTE: Nintendo is reportedly working with Bulletproof
Software on another rendition of the enclosed environment game.  Any
details from the Peanut Gallery? -- Bob Jacobson]
From: rwoodsaj@cc.curtin.edu.au
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: PUBS REQUEST: SPIE Proceedings?
Date: 19 Aug 92 09:27:03 GMT
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



In article <1992Aug17.193251.15404@u.washington.edu>,
skr@castle.edinburgh.ac.uk writes:

> i"ve just read about the SPIE/IST Symposium on Electronic Imaging
> Science & Technology, held in San Jose in february.
> 
> i am unable to track down the proceedings through the library...did
> anyone go or have a copy of the proceedings?  if so any chance you
> could e-mail me a proper reference for the proceedings and/or details
> of the sessions on the human visual system ("depth perception and
> sensory integration for complex visual environments", "human
> perception, perforomance and presence in virtual environments" and
> "virtual environments"; names mentioned include "tom piantanida",
> "bernice rogowicz, daniel ling and wendy kellog", "david foyle") so i
> can send reprint requests.

The Electonic Imaging Symposium actually encompases about 11 different
conferences.  The one I think you are probably interested in is the
series of "Stereoscopic Displays and Applications" Conferences.

The details for the february '92 conference are:

"Stereoscopic Displays and Applications III"
 Editors: John O. Merritt & Scott S. Fisher.
 Proceedings of the SPIE Volume 1669.
 ISBN 0-8194-0823-9
Member price: US$42 
Non-member price: US$53

The previous editions are:
Volume 1457: "Stereoscopic Displays and Applications II"
Volume 1256: "Stereoscopic Displays and Applications"

Alternatively it may be the session titled:
"Human Vision, Visual Processing, and Digital Display III"
Editor: Bernice Rogowitz
Proceedings of the SPIE Volume 1666
ISBN 0-8194-0820-4

SPIE's address is:
P.O. Box 10,
Bellingham WA 98227-0010
USA

Phone: 206/676-3290
FAX:   206/647-1445

In Europe:
Xantener Strasse 22, D 1000 Berlin 15, FR Germany.
Phone: 49-30-881-5047   FAX: 49-30-882-2028

In Japan (Australasia):
c/o O.T.O. Research Corporation
Takeeuchi Building, 1-34-12 Takatanobaba
Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160, Japan.
Phone: 03/3208-7821  FAX: 03/3200-2889

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Andrew Woods   | Centre for Marine Science and Technology,
                 | Curtin University of Technology,
      _--_|\     | GPO Box U1987, Perth W.A. 6001, AUSTRALIA.
     /      \    | Internet: WOODS_AJ@cc.curtin.edu.au
  -->\_.--._/    | Bitnet:   WOODS_AJ%cc.curtin.edu.au@cunyvm.bitnet
Perth      v     | UUCP:     uunet!munnari.oz!cc.curtin.edu.au!WOODS_AJ
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: "Richard M. Coffey" <c-crm@math.utah.edu>
Subject: INDUSTRY: BANGERANG Mike!
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 03:44:18 GMT



Cute guys, real cute.  I would like to take this opportunity to state
that this newsgroup was set up to be a SHARE session not a SH**
session.  DON'T rip on other's work.  If it weren't for them we
wouldn't be having these discussions.

A little bit of good ethics from...
-the richmeister-
"LIFE IS TOO SHORT!!!"
From: deering@deering.Eng.Sun.COM (Michael F. Deering)
Subject: Re: DESIGN: Doors between virtual worlds
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 07:12:44 GMT



For many years, I've liked the idea of links between different virtual
worlds sometimes visually appearing as ``portals'', in which proper
perspective renderings of a portion of the linked world appear as
``holographically painted'' on surfaces in the current world, much as
has been described by previous postings.  An flat example of this
effect were the ``paintings within paintings'' in the opening credits
for the ``Night Gallary'' TV series some years back.

For our VR research, we have actually implemented a version of these
portals, using Z-buffered rendering hardware.  We found that you can
make the portals any shape (not just rectangular), and properly
observe perspective and occlusion by objects nearer the viewer than
the portal itself.  In fact this work influnced the name of our
SIGGRAPH booth this year: the ``Virtual Portal'' derives for our work
on this interface.

One version of the renderer trades off z-buffer percision for speed in
rendering.  First the Z-buffer full range (0.0 - 1.0) is split into
four ranges A (0.0-0.25), B (0.25-0.5), C (0.5-0.75), and D
(0.75-1.0).

1) Render the near world in the front quarter of the Z-buffer range (A).

2) Render the geometery corresponding to the ``membrane'' between the
   worlds into Z-range C, but the top two bits of Z disabled from
   participating in the compare.  The effectively ``tages''
   any visiable pixels of the membrane with an extra high bit.

3) Render the far world (with approprate viewpoint) into Z-range B,
   with full Z-compare.  The far world can only ``win'' the Z comparison
   on pixels also rendered by the membrane, but will always win over the
   membrain pixels, which are always farther away.

This is only one method of achieving this effect, another approach may
be more effective on different hardware.

We also found another more mundane use of these portals: to simulate a
maganifing glass.  Here we attach the position of the circular portal
to the tip of the 3D wand, and make the far world the same as the near
world, but with a larger scale, scale affected by the inverse of the
distance between the observer's eye and the wand.  With the ``portal''
in your hand, you can move it around to magnify any object from
several angles.

While we've had these portals running for over a year now, their extra
rendering time adds enough latency even on high speed hardware to make
the use of multiple visiable portals problematical.  There are some
other things that can be done in the rendering hardware to speed
things up, but it takes years to swing the course of the ship of
custom 3D silicon.

In terms of actual use as part of a 3D GUI I hope that they will come
in handy for some things, but the real test will be real daily use,
something we havn't started yet with this feature.

Michael Deering         Email: Michael.Deering@Eng.Sun.COM
Sun Microsystems        Phone: (415) 336-3017
Mountain View, CA       FAX:   (415) 336-1525
From: julian@sun-1.cs.uct.ac.za (Julian Hansen)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Virtual Worlds FAQ?
Date: 21 Aug 92 09:19:14 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Department, University of Cape Town
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



Hi,

I don't want to bother the readers of this group with silly questions so
could someone please tell me where I might find the FAQ for this group or
where I might find it. If you have it could you mail it to me please - I
would be most grateful.

Thank You

julian

email: julian@sun-3.cs.uct.ac.za

[MODERATOR'S NOTE: We post the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions file)
about once each month.  Unfortunately, it needs a going over, being
about three months old -- but it's summer, etc.  We'll deal with it
after the separation of the newsgroups next month.  For those who
desire the FAQ immediately, it's located at

        milton.u.washington.edu      /public/virtual-worlds/...

It's an excellent piece of work, befitting appearance in PRESENCE or
one of the other academic tomes.  Thanks to Mark De Loura, now bound
for UNC, for putting in the time and effort and intelligence. -- Bob
Jacobson]
From: mailrus!ulowell!cs.ulowell.edu!grinstei@uunet.UU.NET (Georges Grinstein)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: DESIGN: Doors between virtual worlds
Date: 11 Aug 92 18:52:29 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts at Lowell Computer Science
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



>   Having a meadow between worlds - 

It seems that is just having a hierarchy of worlds and that the interface
between the worlds simply represents another world.


-- 
Dr. Georges Grinstein - Institute for Visualization and Perception Research
University of Lowell                                    Lowell, MA 01854
Internet: grinstein@cs.ulowell.edu                      Phone: (508) 934-3627 
UUCP: {(backbones),harvard,mit-eddie,et al}!ulowell!cs.ulowell.edu!grinstein
From: 76130.2225@CompuServe.COM (John Eagan)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: MORE HUMOR (Was Re: DESIGN: Doors between virtual worlds)
Date: 18 Aug 92 19:18:53 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



I write:

>(stuff deleted)
>(kind of like if, say, a virtual US and Australia, no longer
>dealing with matter, deciding to link borders, producing one
>continuous landscape, while retaining the border between them!)
>(more stuff..)

Uh....I didn't really write that....um....it was my Evil Twin, you
know...the one with the bad grammar and spelling....yeah, that's it...
From: COS.MARSHALL@GLASGOW-POLY.AC.UK
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: WHO: Starting work in Glasgow, Scotland, visiting Washington State
Date: 18 Aug 92 10:27:32 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu


 
 Hi, I work at the Glasgow Polytechnic and I'm trying to start up some
work in VR. As it stands there's *nothing* happening in Glasgow.  My
supervisor's going to Washington sometime during the next three months
to visit some company to see what kind of stuff they've got.

 He's asked me to find out if there's any places he could visit while
he's over there that would show him a few things, like the latest in
VR hardware and software, and whats been done.
 
 Could you please e-mail me and let me know whats going on, and if you
know of any people and companies in Washington who could help out?

 If I get him a good contact, this could well be the start of a *real
live* VR project in Glasgow (it will be impressive to me anyway).
 
 Thanks in advance for any help.

 -Iain Marshall  cos.marshall@glasgow-poly.ac.uk
 
  Tel : +44-41 331 3286
  Fax : +44-41 331 3277
From: wjbaird@napier.uwaterloo.ca (Warren Baird)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: EDUC: VR work at the Banff Centre for the Arts.
Date: 12 Aug 92 18:16:43 GMT
Organization: University of Waterloo
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



Hi,

I'm contemplating stopping at Banff during my vaction (the next few
weeks).

Does anyone know if any of the VR work begin done at the Centre for
the Arts is open to the public?

Thanks

Warren
From: dstamp@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca (Dave Stampe-Psy+Eng)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: TECH: Enough of My standard....
Date: 11 Aug 92 14:18:57 GMT
Organization: University of Waterloo
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



cdshaw@cs.ualberta.ca (Chris Shaw) writes:
>
>In 1700 articles, people have been arguing about some sort of
>"standard."
>
>I'm sure some people are doing this, but just in case they aren't,
>could the debaters all please IMPLEMENT something? That way, you'll
>have something meaty and interesting to talk about instead of this
>inane garbage about how you need 128-bit coordinates!
>
>By the way, this is my fourth year of doing VR software, and I have
>not yet felt the need for more than 32 bit floats. Since most real
>CPUs have very good floating point units these days, it seems kind of
>silly to hobble yourself with fixed point. Especially when you
>consider that you're going to be polygon-fill bound anyway, due to
>lousy frame buffer architecture.

It's getting very close.  Some interesting ideas have come up during
the past week, so it's still too early to close discussion.  The
standard specifics should be ready to start in less than a month.  And
this is going to be a GREAT standard-- I can see that.

There are good reasons NOT to use floats in the standard.  And 128-bit
numbers will rarely be needed either.  I expect most of the data will
be transferred as 8 bit, scaled numbers, with multiple scales and
incremental resolution.  After all, this is the network side, and it's
easy to convert to floats once you receive the data.

The original spec will probably be polys, prototypes, and CSG, but
will have extension bits in ALL specifier fields.  This should handle
it nicely.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 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: dlwood@mailbox.syr.edu (David L Wood)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: DESIGN: Doors between virtual worlds
Date: 14 Aug 92 04:09:11 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Aug17.060756.22583
Organization: University of Washington
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



In article <BstptD.Ezq@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca>
dstamp@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca (Dave Stampe-Psy+Eng) writes:

>The easiest way to do this is still to make a visual link to the area
>you're viewing through the portal.  Then your machine is doing the
>work, not someone else's.  The link functions as if an extension was
>made to your region-- visible elements of your region become invisible
>behind the portal, and objects from the viewed region are put in place
>using the desired portal region transform.  THis handles "weird space"
>portals nicely as well.  When the portal dies, the objects are removed
>from your viewspace.

If the door were defined as an object that receives (requests) message
packets from objects within a certain volume (those on the one side of
the door facing AWAY from you, follow?) and perhaps even having the
door object run some code on a networked machine to do a bit of
clipping around the edges, then send the results back to you, the
user, then the work would be halfway done, and you would have
non-static pictures on the door.  One reason for using an object
running linked code would be to reduce bandwidth, since having an eye
on two locations in the virtual environment is akin to having two user
objects and all the mess that that entails (too much trying to be sent
to the user).  With the door object running code on a net.machine, it
could also update itself as you see fit.  The door could also have
within it's linked code a formula to determine size/distance for the
actual projection onto the door, in an effort to eliminate objects
that are not visible.  Hmm, doors are smarter than I thought! :-)

>Any opinions on the render-and-copy versus the visibility link?

I think the visibility link coupled with an intelligent door would be
the most efficient for low end systems.  For the SGI connected via
ethernet to the router, however, a render-and-copy method would
produce >slightly< better images, IMO.  --

+-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| dlwood@mailbox.syr.edu | Gigs and gigs of NiCad memory, bummer.. | |
Cybernaut, with a thought.  | Why buy the leading brand; 90% hate it.
|
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+