From mconway@microsoft.com Tue May 18 14:53:38 1999 Received: from burdell.cc.gatech.edu (root@burdell.cc.gatech.edu [130.207.3.207]) by lennon.cc.gatech.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id OAA22308 for ; Tue, 18 May 1999 14:42:15 -0400 (EDT) Received: from asbestos.hitl.washington.edu (hitl-new.hitl.washington.edu [128.95.73.60]) by burdell.cc.gatech.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id OAA04740; Tue, 18 May 1999 14:41:28 -0400 (EDT) Received: from mail4.microsoft.com (mail4.microsoft.com [131.107.3.122]) by asbestos.hitl.washington.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA04323 for <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu>; Tue, 18 May 1999 11:39:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: by mail4.microsoft.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2524.0) id ; Tue, 18 May 1999 11:38:57 -0700 Message-ID: <4FD6422BE942D111908D00805F3158DF0D95429C@RED-MSG-52> From: Matt Conway To: "'3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu'" <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu> Subject: RE: Virtual vs. real manipulation Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 11:38:46 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2524.0) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Status: RO Doug, A defense date next week! Congratulations, Doug. I'm sure I'm not the only one from the 3D UI Mailing list to wish you the very best of luck. Kick butt. Take Names. (literally: don't leave the room without the signatures. snicker). As for your question.... Allow me to sort the world of VR experiences into two camps: the "Realistic" and the "Magical" (tip of the hat to Randy Smith for first making this *critical* distinction in UI design). REALISTIC VIRTUAL WORLDS These worlds are meant as simulations of the real world, meaning that the experience is meant to transfer skills/knowledge that the VR participant is supposed to take out of the Virtual world and use in the real world. Flight simulators are archetypical of Realistic Virtual Worlds. MAGIC VIRTUAL WORLDS Here, the design goal is to support work or activities whose outcomes have no implications outside of the virtual domain. The whole point of being "in the helmet" is to do work there, not to carry a skill out to one's experience "outside the helmet." Data exploration in VR, and Multi-gen-like world building would be good examples. Doug, (correct me if I'm wrong, please) I think your question only makes sense in the case of Realistic Virtual Worlds. Here's why I think so: Let's think about the user's goal. If the user's goal is simply to "stack blocks in the virtual world" then we have a Magic Virtual World and we provide a system with a microphone and speech recognition so the user can say ("stack these blocks"). Of course there are other zillions of other designs, but they all have the quality that they can provide "non-realistic" block-stacking support for the user (gridding, auto alignment, etc). On the other hand, if the user's goal was to learn how to stack blocks in the real world, then our microphone-based interaction technique isn't the right answer. In fact, its dead wrong - negative training and all that. side note: Okay, if you're Montgomery Burns, you can say "stack these blocks, Smithers!" and it probably works just fine, but that's a different issue. Jokes aside, i also note that this class of worlds is constrained in the sorts of experiences that the user can be exposed to -- for example: there is no such thing as a Realistic Virtual World that trains the user in stacking elephants like cord wood. This, by definition, is a Magical Virtual World. So, in short, I think Doug's question is an interesting one but: - it only applies to realistic VR, not magic VR - *probably* depends critically on the nature of the real task you're trying to teach. Threading a needle is a different object-manipulation task from making a basket from the 3 point line. Both are conceviable as potential "Realistic" VR experiences (and handy too!) but they probably have very different demands. Bottom line claim I make: you can ask how close any *given* Realistic VR experience is to its analogous Real Life Experience, but I don't see how you can make broad claims about how the medium of VR in general is or isn't close to replicating real life experiences in general. Facinating question, of course, and I would love to hear counterarguments. again, good luck on the defense, Doug!! -- Matt _________________________________________________ Matt Conway Adaptive Systems and Interaction Research Group Microsoft Research One Microsoft Way Redmond WA 98052 internal http://msrweb/users/mconway external http://research.microsoft.com/users/mconway -----Original Message----- From: bowman@cc.gatech.edu [mailto:bowman@cc.gatech.edu] Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 1999 6:00 AM To: 3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu Subject: Virtual vs. real manipulation Hi everyone, I hope that things are going well for all of you, and not too busy. I'm doing my defense next week, but I still have time to post this, so surely you'll have time to reply... :-) A question was posed to me recently and I thought I would throw it out to the group to see what you thought. I'll post my own answer in a few days. In terms of performance (speed and errors), how far are we from real-world performance on a simple, within-reach object manipulation task in VR? That is, if you have a set of 4 blocks that you want to place one on top of the other, how much worse is it in VR than in real life? Are we close to the optimal we can do in VR? If not, what would cause performance to leap to the next level? Are these even the right questions to be asking? Chew on that and reply to the group... --Doug -- Doug Bowman, Ph.D. Candidate College of Computing, GVU Center, Georgia Tech Room 388 CRB, (404) 894-5104 bowman@cc.gatech.edu http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~bowman/