From mconway@microsoft.com Mon May 24 17:05:26 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 RAA05717 for ; Mon, 24 May 1999 17:05:22 -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 RAA16976; Mon, 24 May 1999 17:05:17 -0400 (EDT) Received: from pss-imc-01.microsoft.com (pss-imc-01.microsoft.com [131.107.3.100]) by asbestos.hitl.washington.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id OAA08413 for <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu>; Mon, 24 May 1999 14:01:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail1.microsoft.com (INET-IMC-01 [157.54.9.125]) by pss-imc-01.microsoft.com with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.2591.0) id K6VRF6H3; Mon, 24 May 1999 14:01:18 -0700 Received: by INET-IMC-01 with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2524.0) id ; Mon, 24 May 1999 14:01:13 -0700 Message-ID: <4FD6422BE942D111908D00805F3158DF0D954301@RED-MSG-52> From: Matt Conway To: "'Drew Kessler'" , 3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu Subject: RE: Virtual vs. real manipulation Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 14:01:09 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2524.0) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Status: RO Drew, As usual, I agree with you (esp. the part about you agreeing with me. uh oh...I smell a loop. Somone hit control-C would ya?) I also agree, Drew: there is such a thing as too much magic. Of course, I've done the flying thing too, but flying doesn't *have* to stink -- we have to be careful to separate out the idea from any particular implementation. Related historical note: Real life flying was also um....suboptimal before the Wright Brothers. True, there were no real heavier-than-air-powered-and-manned flights but a lot of people got close. A great deal of what Wilbur and Orville struggled with was the *control system* for their flyer -- they, like others, had most of the basic technology down for a LONG time before they actually got the user interface right. We may be walking in the footprints of Wilbur and Orville here. -- Matt _________________________________________________ Matt Conway, eBooks Group Microsoft Corp. One Microsoft Way Redmond WA 98052 internal http://msrweb/users/mconway external http://research.microsoft.com/users/mconway -----Original Message----- From: Drew Kessler [mailto:drewk@roger.cis.upenn.edu] Sent: Monday, May 24, 1999 12:52 PM To: 3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu Subject: RE: Virtual vs. real manipulation On Mon, May 24, 1999, Matt Conway wrote these words of wisdom: > I love this discussion. Thanks Doug! > As usual, I have some comments. ;) Ditto. Ditto. > >>>> personal announcement <<<< > I start today as program manager for Clear Type > in Microsoft's electronic books effort. Congrats! It sounds exciting. > Magic VR isn't there to make up for the deficiencies in VR, it is there > to make up for the deficiencies of THE REAL WORLD. > > I go back to my original email: if your business is training (simulation), > then you have to steer clear of magic. In all other cases, you should be > gunning for *deep* magic -- anything less will keep you mired in the > inadequacies and limitations of The Real World (occlusion, can only reach > and see so far, can only be in one place at a time, etc). Given the best VR > hardware in the world > I would still want to fly (and head crusher, and Go-Go, and snapping > and....) Matt, I'm with you in spirit, but I must say that I've done the flying thing, and it stinks! All I do it get lost, usually finding myself in this huge dark room with a green ceiling (... the ground :) One problem with magic is that techniques do not build on each other in an "obvious" way. If you give me a spell to turn a frog into a prince, I'm sure that I would have a hard time figuring out how to change a frog into a TV repairman (if I needed one...) My point here, of course, is that there is value in basing some interaction techniques in the limitations of the real world, even if the technology does not require it. That value is mainly in user understanding, but may also be in properties such as precision (objects that do not penetrate, for example, can be more precisely placed). Ok, so I was about to conclude by saying that "gunning for *deep* magic" isn't always the right thing to do, but then I had a revelation: it is magic that objects in VR can penetrate without serious consequences, but it is also magic when objects are prevented from penetrating even though there are no physical objects touching each other. Having decided that VR is just all magic, I yield to Matt's argument :) -Drew -- ___________________________________________________________________________ G. Drew Kessler drewk@cis.upenn.edu Dept. of Computer and Information Science Office: 174 Moore Bldg University of Pennsylvania Phone: (215)573-2815 200 South 33rd Street Fax: (215)898-0587 Philadelphia, PA, USA 19104-6389 http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~drewk/home.html