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From: moncam!loki@relay.EU.net (Never Kid A Kidder)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: What is a VRobject?
Message-ID: <7987@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 21 Sep 90 11:52:44 GMT
Sender: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: (n) The process of becoming an organ.
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Approved: hitl@hardy.u.washington.edu



At the most fundamental level, we have to map information onto the
physical senses.  To do this, a VRobject must contain directives as to
how to render itself.  The information it uses to do this can be
arbitrarily encoded - someone mentioned SmallTalk, but some language,
anyway - in such a way that the object itself need not contain the
info, but merely directions on how to get that info (eg, "my position
is (x,y,z), and my shape is a square, and I want you to fill me with
the video images from socket V", or "ask the weather database for
pressure readings against lat/long, and render me as an undulating
plain", or "my position is (x,y,z), I'm a box, and I'm emitting sound
which you can find on socket A", or "my movements are determined by
input device D on machine M").  These kinds of VRobjects, once you've
received this info, don't need to bother you again unless they do
something you couldn't tell from the info they contained.  Now the
last example I gave might be better done as informing you whenever it
changes, or you are going to have to keep interrogating that input
device, and given that it might be someone's DataGlove, *everyone* in
that VRspace will be doing the same, to keep up to date.

So the way I see it, you only need directives for this physical
mapping, and I'm getting confused as to what exactly people mean by
attributes; do you mean other information which can be rendered (still
in one of the physical ways) on a purely voluntary basis, depending on
what the user is interested in?

Here are some more ideas about VRobjects.  Sorry for the inclusion of
cyberjargon, but it seems to fit.

We are VRobjects too, as is our `deck'.  We have a door object whose
function is to check for (a) us wanting to exit, and (b) others
wanting to enter.  From the inside, this can be done by waiting for
our VRhand to press an activation panel, and from the outside, the
door can wait for `knock knock' packets coming in from the net.  These
doors can be as tight as Fort Knox if we so chose.  Maybe `ICE' can be
a part of this security.  Once out of this door, we have a view of
some kind of net (`the matrix'), with machines spacially separated in
some way determined by using, say, the network address.  Once through
the door, we are in a VRSpace where there might be other people &c.
&c..  Back to our own deck, we might want to create personal
doors/windows/teevees onto our own configured reality - say one into
that weather example I gave.  We can then create objects which
represent arbitrary information, using our universal language, and do
whatever it is we want with them.  This will be a personal world, but
if anyone enters your deck, they will be able to share and enjoy.