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From: ksand@Apple.COM (Kent Sandvik)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: Toward a Typology/Topology of Virtual Worlds
Message-ID: <11741@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 27 Nov 90 01:46:45 GMT
References: <11673@milton.u.washington.edu>
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In article <11673@milton.u.washington.edu> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul 
Dolan) writes:
>3) The VR is user-configurable. The user moves through it adding doors
>or designing furniture, and they are there for the next access.

Which leads to design ideas such as aliases and macros in order to
configure one's paths. Eventually a lot of the abstractions used
in normal user interface design could be implemented as part of 
the VR navigation. The question is that is this user-friendly
for the common VR user, with the exception of VR hackers?

The general rule with plain 2 or 3-dimensional interface design is 
to imitate the real life. With VR the designer has the temptation
to break all rules, good or bad. Eventually one strategy is to map
everything from the non-virtual life 1:1, and the only addition is 
the speed of time, which could be controlled.

I.e if the user wants to travel from VR point A to VR point B, he/she
takes a bicycle, but the distance travelled seems to be short due to
an increase in the TIMESPEED variable (selectable from the bicycle
handle....).

Kent Sandvik 
-- 
Kent Sandvik, Apple Computer Inc, Developer Technical Support
NET:ksand@apple.com, AppleLink: KSAND
Zippy says: "With C++ we now do have the possibilities to inherit
dangling pointer problems"