From jbisdale@gte.net Wed May 19 12:40:58 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 MAA05101 for ; Wed, 19 May 1999 12:40:55 -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 MAA19576; Wed, 19 May 1999 12:40:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: from smtp2.gte.net (smtp2.gte.net [207.115.153.31]) by asbestos.hitl.washington.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id JAA10121 for <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu>; Wed, 19 May 1999 09:40:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from isdale.gte.net (calnet17-206.gtecablemodem.com [207.175.240.206]) by smtp2.gte.net with SMTP ; id LAA19570 Wed, 19 May 1999 11:39:25 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990519093709.00a07110@mail.gte.net> X-Sender: jbisdale@mail.gte.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 09:37:09 -0700 To: bowman@cc.gatech.edu (Doug Bowman), 3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu (3D UI List) From: Jerry Isdale Subject: Re: Virtual vs. real manipulation In-Reply-To: <199905181300.JAA21169@lennon.cc.gatech.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Status: RO (Good Luck with the defense, Doug!) The distinction between real and magic VR worlds brought up by Matt Conway is an important one, but I think Doug's basic question is relevant to both types. It is not a question of training people for other tasks. It is a question of relative effectiveness of techniques... Just how good are our 3D manipulative techniques? Now there is really no way to get a direct objective measure of this in a 'magic' world, but much of the manipulative effort/technique is very similar to realistic vr worlds. (Granted there is no "Snap to Grid" in the real world, but sticking your hand through an object and pinching may not be the most effective virtual grabbing technique either.) The only way (?) we could get an objective baseline for effectiveness is to measure against the real world. A timed test of grabbing and moving blocks, papers, and other objects (large and small) in the real world would provide that baseline (with large samples of course). Then various VR techniques could be used in a 'realistic' virtual environment of the tests. Once we have measures of these techniques versus the real world, we could then measure the same virtual techniques in 'magic' worlds (data exploration, world building). I would expect to see similar realitive measures between different techniques in real vs magic worlds. If so, then we have a way to compare new magic-only techniques to see if they are really 'better'. ============= Jerry Isdale, Technology Review Editor, VR News phone: 805 379 2667 1527 Wakefield Ave fax: 805 496 8547 Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 email: isdale@acm.org http://www.vrnews.com http://vr.isdale.com/techReview.html