From jpierce@cs.cmu.edu Fri May 8 14:33:23 1998 Received: from burdell.cc.gatech.edu (root@burdell.cc.gatech.edu [130.207.3.207]) by lennon.cc.gatech.edu (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id OAA14395 for ; Fri, 8 May 1998 14:33:21 -0400 (EDT) Received: from wheaten.hitl.washington.edu (lPB1jP7QIienBCkVh/ZVblXEmcVokJFt@[128.95.73.60]) by burdell.cc.gatech.edu (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id OAA06985 for ; Fri, 8 May 1998 14:33:20 -0400 (EDT) Received: from ux2.sp.cs.cmu.edu (UX2.SP.CS.CMU.EDU [128.2.198.102]) by wheaten.hitl.washington.edu (8.8.8/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA20325 for <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu>; Fri, 8 May 1998 11:33:09 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199805081833.LAA20325@wheaten.hitl.washington.edu> Received: from ASYNC11-CS1.NET.CS.CMU.EDU by ux2.sp.cs.cmu.edu id aa17457; 8 May 98 14:32 EDT X-Sender: jpierce@ux2.sp.cs.cmu.edu X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.0 Date: Fri, 08 May 1998 14:30:51 -0400 To: 3D UI List <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu> From: Jeff Pierce Subject: Re: What is 3D good for? In-Reply-To: <199805081447.KAA02264@lennon.cc.gatech.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Status: RO At 10:47 AM 5/8/98 -0400, Doug Bowman wrote: >Furthermore, some people have tried to put some structure on this >list of possible apps - I'm taking this from Rory Stuart's book >"The Design of VEs" - he adapted it from Wickens & Baker's chapter >in "VEs and Advanced Interface Design". I'm never looked at either of these. Are they worth the required investment in time? >Online performance - accomplish task in real world thru teleoperation Seems like this is an area where we might need really good haptics. Has anyone seen any cool new work in this area? UNC had some stuff going with haptics for awhile, but I haven't heard much from anywhere on this recently. >Offline training/rehearsal - practice real world tasks in VE Has anyone seen a study that confirms transfer of training in this area? I remember Bowen Loftin did some work with NASA, but the results were somewhat less than conclusive. >Online comprehension - understand/gain insight into VE while in it I've seen some desktop 3D systems that attack this angle. Has anyone seen a VE that uses an HMD for comprehension? >Offline learning - acquire knowledge and experience in VE that can >be used/sythesized later My dad's a history teacher - one of these days I'm going to have to build a virtual Gettysburg. >Online design - use VE to design objects/environments >Entertainment - VE for enjoyment only Yup and yup. >Communication - VE for sharing ideas with others Am I the only one who's bothered by people who're trying to do "virtual videoconferencing"? Talk about using a new medium to emulate an old one. >Perceptual-motor research - VE for doing perception experiments > >I think this is a pretty good list - anyone got applications that >don't fit into this? How many of these categories would you >characterize as having little interaction or a lot of interaction? I think both learning and entertainment have the most capacity for being passive experiences. After all, passive learning seems to be the rage in schools these days (sit and be lectured at), and with DisneyQuest we've seen that it's very difficult to design a good experience where the guest actually plays a part. In all media, it's easier to build a passive experience. >One more thing - let me defend myself a little bit on this mini-CAVE >issue. I don't doubt that this would be a great display technology >for a lot of applications. [...] >you do anything other than turn at right angles, you'll probably >get a little disoriented. In a training app, replication of real-world >stimuli is important esp. if you are supposed to gain a spatial >understanding of the real world by using the VE. I guess what I'm >saying is that we shouldn't throw away our HMDs yet. :-) Oh, I certainly didn't mean to imply we'll be throwing away our HMDs. I think Doug is exactly right here - if you're moving about a virtual space, to remain oriented you really want an immersive display device like an HMD or CAVE. Sarah Chance / Jack Loomis have done some experiments proving exactly this point. He gave a talk at CMU about some of their work in January, and I believe the latest issue of PRESENCE has the formal writeup. Worth taking a look at if you haven't heard of what they're working on. Jeff