Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!dali.cs.montana.edu!milton!hlab
From: uselton@nas.nasa.gov (Samuel P. Uselton)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: See through glasses (was Re: Cyberspace, not laptops (was ...))
Message-ID: <1991May8.194928.9375@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 8 May 91 16:39:41 GMT
References: <1991May4.224336.20614@beaver.cs.washington.edu>
Sender: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu (Human Int. Technology Lab)
Organization: NAS Program, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
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Approved: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu



In article <1991May8.135105.15829@milton.u.washington.edu> 
autodesk!robertj@uunet.UU.NET (Young Rob Jellinghaus) writes:


>To hell with the screens.  The most usable sort of display system for
>me, at least, would be a cyberspace-based one.  What could such a
>future system do?
>
>Slip on a glove and a pair of glasses, with the computer on your belt.
>Assume the glasses are translucent, so you can still see, but the
*************************************
>computer generates images which overlay the real world.  A white table
>could have black text superimposed on it.  You could be lying on your
>back in the grass, manipulating 3-D models floating in the space above
>your body.  No need for any clipboard at all.
>
( stuff deleted )
>
>If you get confused between the real world and the superimposed images,
>just clip some black sunshades on the front of your glasses.  Bingo,
>you're just seeing the cyberspace.

Cute idea, and should work fine.
>
>The real problem with all this, of course, is the glasses.  They're a
>pain.  Any cyberspace interface that's based on this "superimposed-
>images" model will need them, though, unless we can come up with video
>contact lenses....

The first head mounted display I ever heard about (the Ivan Sutherland
and friends at U. Utah version) and the first two I ever was actually around
(a failed prototype at UT Dallas circa 1978 and the U North Carolina system
circa 1985) all three used displays hung from the temple bars of glasses
which you saw reflected in half-silvered (on the INside of course) lenses
of the glasses.  Because the lenses are only half-silvered, you still see
the "real" world too.  Computer generated objects are "ghosts".  Of course 
at the time, the displays were just doing wireframes to keep a decent
update rate.  I'm not sure how you would include the wide field of view
optics, but otherwise............

>--
>Rob Jellinghaus                 | "Next time you see a lie being spread or
>Autodesk, Inc.                  |  a bad decision being made out of sheer
>robertj@Autodesk.COM            |  ignorance, pause, and think of hypertext."
>{decwrl,uunet}!autodesk!robertj |  -- K. Eric Drexler, _Engines of Creation_

Sam Uselton             uselton@nas.nasa.gov
employed by CSC         working for NASA (Ames)         speaking for myself