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From: kevino@fs0.ee.ubc.ca (kevin o'donnell)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: "Space"
Summary: clarification of semantic space mapping
Message-ID: <1364@fs1.ee.ubc.ca>
Date: 7 Aug 90 19:35:53 GMT
References: <9007250107.AA01311@hitl.vrnet.washington.edu> <schraudo.649982297@beowulf>
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In article <schraudo.649982297@beowulf>, schraudo%beowulf@ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) writes:
> wex@dali.pws.bull.com (Buckaroo Banzai) writes:
> 
> >We can map the properties of objects one-to-one onto dimensions of
> >cyberspace.  The dimensions reflect some element of meaning (semantics)
> >about the objects; thus, semantic dimensions.  An N-dimensional space of
> >these dimensions is a semantic space.  I conceive of cyberspace as a
> >semantic space.
> 
> Buckaroo's suggestions don't strike me as useful for either visualization,
> navigation or manipulation of virtual objects:
> 
> To visualize an object in it you have to somehow embed the semantic space in
> our plain old 4-D spacetime.  The entire cognitive engineering problem resides
> in the design of this embedding, yet you are very vague about it.  Could you
> tell us specifically what sort of embedding you had in mind?
> 

I think what was being suggested is something similar to choosing the
axes on a graph. You choose some property (which may not be a spatial 
concept) or aspect of the data and assign a direction to it. For
example, if navigating the database of available computer systems to
buy, the horizontal plane could map out the size (for portablility)
versus the memory capacity, while the vertical direction could represent 
benchmarked processing speed and the price range could be represented by 
colour.  

Each machine in the database would be represented by an appropriate icon
and entering the icon would transport the user into another space with
more machine specific information mapped out.

This is probably a more limited form of what Alan was thinking of but
that's how I interpreted it.

Til Later,
Kevin

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|"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain."       | Kevin O'Donnell         |
|There was a long silence.                     | kevino@ee.ubc.ca        |
|"I suppose," said Pooh, "that`s why he never  | U of British Columbia   |
| understands anything."                       | Vancouver, Canada       |
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