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From: brucec%phoebus.phoebus.labs.tek.com@RELAY.CS. (Bruce Cohen;;50-662;LP=A;)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: Cyberspace, VR, a summary of what I've seen so far...
Message-ID: <7660@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 16 Sep 90 19:24:15 GMT
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In article <7624@milton.u.washington.edu> watserv1.waterloo.edu!broehl@ria.ccs.u
wo.ca (Bernie Roehl) writes:
> 
> 
> 
> In article <7511@milton.u.washington.edu> zap@lage.lysator.liu.se (H}kan Ander
ss
> on) writes:
>>
 ... 
>>But have anyone thought of the similarity between cyberspace and
>>the GUI's of modern computers? 
> 
> Yes.  (At least, *I* have -- and I assume others as well).
> 
>>In a sense, cyberspace is already invented, but today it's only two-
>>dimensional, it sits on the screen in front of you.

Yes, that's true if by Cyberspace you mean a user interface to an
inrformation space which presents a abstract view of that space.  But
there's another element which we've talked about under the name of Virtual
Reality: making that view of the information active.  Right now, user
interfaces are too passive (with respect to the information, not the user);
the user can manipulate the objects represented in the interface, but the
objects have trouble "manipulating back".  In other words, there isn't
enough sensory feedback from the object to give the user a sense of the
change in the object other than the same cognitive feedback we find in
textual interfaces.

One purpose of datagloves, for instance, is to engage the sense of touch in
the interface, to add to that sensory feedback (in addition to the added
manipulation it allows the user).  Even if there is no force or texture
feedback in the gloves, the proprioceptive feedback of joint position and
muscle pair contraction/distension adds a physical element to the interface
which increases the sense of the "realness" of the objects being
manipulated.

> 
> Right.  The extension to three dimensions is a critical element, as is the
> notion of "sharing" that world with other people.

I agree, but I think that the more "physical" the interface gets, the
better, even if the graphics are less than ideal.  Fancy 3D shaded graphics
are nice, but a flat-colored object I can pick up is more real to me than a
specular object my hand passes through.
--
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Bruce Cohen, Computer Research Lab        email: brucec@tekcrl.labs.tek.com
Tektronix Laboratories, Tektronix, Inc.                phone: (503)627-5241
M/S 50-662, P.O. Box 500, Beaverton, OR  97077