Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wuarchive!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!milton!hlab
From: lance@motcsd.csd.mot.com (lance.norskog)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: Virtual Reality, Helmets, and Gloves
Message-ID: <1991Apr4.230928.19115@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 4 Apr 91 22:29:05 GMT
References: <1991Apr3.231354.27540@milton.u.washington.edu>
Sender: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu (Human Int. Technology Lab)
Organization: Human Interface Technology Lab, Univ. of Wash., Seattle.
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Approved: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu



In sci.virtual-worlds you write:

>I am wondering whether the concept of virtual reality does,
>almost by definition, involve the use of helmets with eyepieces,
>together with gloves.
>...

Does the Virtual Reality camp really expect people to stand up
and wave their arms around in cartoonland for 8 hrs/day?  I would
only use the helmet if it were lighter, and had a selectable
feed-through for the real world.  LCD screens are transparent anyway,
it should be easy to put an LCD shutter behind the screen in
along with the backlight panel.  The VPL DataGlove is flimsy, and
the Power Glove is so bulky that I was surprised I could actually
type with it on.  The full-time Input Device Of Tomorrow should
be designed very carefully to avoid Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, which
means you will probably be motionless and just gently twitch the
controls.

I'm interested in this topic because I want a better method of 
presenting and browsing information, one which engages more of 
my senses and methods of interpreting the environment.
2D window systems are useless, I find them to be just "clutter managers".  
I expect the most important product of the VR movement to be a
3D desktop computing environment.  I'm squarely in the HCI camp.

Stereo vision is key.  The last revamp of the human visual system was
70 million years ago, when we switched from a ground animal to a tree
animal.  The fronts of our faces went flat, our eyes got huge,
and our "visual brain" expanded, so that we could fly through the 
trees without falling 50 feet to an uncertain fate.  

Sound are also very important.  Sound has very strong effects on 
concentration levels, and its use in computers thus far has been
disappointing.

We have a very strong time sense, and the use of rhythm in all the
senses has really never been explored in computing interfaces.

Lance Norskog