From mconway@microsoft.com Wed May 19 13:12:11 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 NAA07778 for ; Wed, 19 May 1999 13:12:08 -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 NAA22532; Wed, 19 May 1999 13:12:05 -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 KAA10235 for <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu>; Wed, 19 May 1999 10:10:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: by mail4.microsoft.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2524.0) id ; Wed, 19 May 1999 10:09:59 -0700 Message-ID: <4FD6422BE942D111908D00805F3158DF0D9542A9@RED-MSG-52> From: Matt Conway To: 3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu Subject: RE: Virtual vs. real manipulation Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 10:09:51 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2524.0) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Status: RO I agree that relative effectiveness is an important concept, but you have to ask "for what?" -- we have to not get confused with means and ends here. Example: manipulation of objects in a virtual world by grasping and placing is a means. making a stack of perfectly aligned boxes is an end. we can make the first (a means) *incredibly* easy and STILL miss the boat if the user only cares about making stacks of boxes (an end). This is really at the heart of my "magical" vs. "realistic" distinction. Realistic VR often *does* care about means over ends because of the simulation/training that we'd talked about. Magical VR is less constrained by training effects and can therefore supply the ends more directly (a "stack these boxes" command or gridding, or....) of course one person's means is another person's end. Making a stack of perfectly aligned boxes might be a subgoal to.. making a bridge or some such...and on it goes. -- 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: Jerry Isdale [mailto:jbisdale@gte.net] Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 1999 9:37 AM To: bowman@cc.gatech.edu; 3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu Subject: Re: Virtual vs. real manipulation (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