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From: bzs@Encore.COM (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc,comp.sys.next,comp.sys.mac,comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: replacing the desktop metaphor
Message-ID: <4479@xenna.Encore.COM>
Date: 24 Dec 88 18:28:27 GMT
References: <4362@pitt.UUCP> <257@gloom.UUCP> <1077@naucse.UUCP>
Organization: Encore Computer Corp, Marlboro, MA
Lines: 53
In-reply-to: kwc@naucse.UUCP's message of 21 Dec 88 17:58:31 GMT
Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.41.15 of Tue Jun  9 1987 on xenna (berkeley-unix)


This past week I attended a talk by Scott Fisher of NASA/AMES hosted
by the Boston Computer Society entitled "Artificial Reality".

He is working on a system which uses a helmet with stereoscopic
displays and head-motion sensors and data gloves (gloves you put on to
interact with what you are viewing in the helmet.)

As you turn your head the scene changes to match. You can use the
gloves for several types of input, grabbing things in the environment
and moving them about (one of the video tapes showed someone grabbing
menus and rearranging them in space), a simple sign language to do
things like change your perspective (a fist with the index finger
motioning upward started you moving up above the "room"), etc. The
gloves can also be visually replaced with a robot arm or any other
object so it corresponds with your motions.

One of the goals is to help design new control environments for NASA's
spacestation, rather than be confronted with a visual field of meters
and dials etc on a typical control panel operators would be able to
put a helmet on and set up a much more flexible, consistent
environment in, essentially, an empty room. Similar applications were
mentioned to help with EVA's (ie. space walks.)

Other applications by external groups included surgical assistance
(eg. views to help match up previously designed surgical goals during
an actual operation, bone-grafts were mentioned), three-dimensional
art work (sort of a three-dimensional paint program), being able to
interact with simulations (there was one tape of a shuttle exhaust
simulation you could step inside of or even become one of the
particles) and of course recreational applications (computer games, he
mentioned the possibilities for adventure-style games.)

My thought was wow, finally a solution to two people arguing about the
color schemes in the house, they can each have their own!

A version of the data glove is currently available from the same
company which has been working with the NASA/AMES group (I didn't
catch the name.) The helmet is still under devpt but Scott Fisher
assured the audience that there is a great deal of commercial
interest, he indicated there are still some details to be worked out
to make this viable (I believe he still has trouble generating the
graphics quickly enough to keep them in sync with all motions, the
result of falling behind is usually a bad case of motion sickness.)

Graphics were all wire-frame for now.

The gentleman who introduced Scott (sorry, forgot his name, probably
the president of BCS or some such person) made a funny remark about
wondering if one day he'll wake up and realize that he'd been wearing
an artificial reality helmet all his life...

	-Barry Shein, ||Encore||