From g97rc001@omega.ru.ac.za Wed Sep 30 05:07:18 1998 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 FAA16879 for ; Wed, 30 Sep 1998 05:07:13 -0400 (EDT) Received: from wheaten.hitl.washington.edu (IDENT:UBxQETLhmMof3I+GzqdVqFgaj4RaA3JO@[128.95.73.60]) by burdell.cc.gatech.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id FAA22195 for ; Wed, 30 Sep 1998 05:07:42 -0400 (EDT) Received: from omega.ru.ac.za (omega.ru.ac.za [146.231.24.56]) by wheaten.hitl.washington.edu (8.8.8/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA07108 for <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu>; Wed, 30 Sep 1998 02:05:10 PDT Received: (qmail 23325 invoked by uid 590); 30 Sep 1998 09:05:37 -0000 Message-ID: <19980930090537.23324.qmail@omega.ru.ac.za> Subject: Data Flow in a Generic VR Application To: 3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 11:05:37 +0200 (GMT) From: Mike Rorke X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL15 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO Hi ... I am currently working on my Masters project, doing research into virtual reality interaction. At present, my research is focusing on isolating the different components of a generic virtual reality system, and the data that flows between them. The idea being that if I can produce a good enough interface, I can implement multiple interaction techniques and simply slot in the one best suited to a particular application/user. I am sending this to the mailing list to get the opinions of other people currently working in the field. Please tell me what you think, improvements, corrections, etc. I have isolated 3 main parts of a generic VR application. They are : The System : this is the 'meat' of the application and will depend totally on what exactly is being implemented Interaction Component(s) : these are the users 'handles' into the world e.g. a virtual hand. These relay the users commands (through a standard interface) to the system which implemets them, and give the user information about the virtual world. Objects : I have decided to give objects in the world 'limited intelligence'. Instead of the other parts of the application all needing to know how to deal with various types of objects e.g. control widgets, the objects themselves have some knowledge of what they are and how they react to certain commands. I have then isolated a group of commands that the use may wish to execute on an object (Grab, Drop, Point & Press currently), and each object knows how it reacts to these. I have also tried to isolate the data that needs to flow between these components. The best way to view this flow is through a diagram, a copy of which I have hosted on my project web site at http://cs.ru.ac.za/homes/g97rc001/pics/framework.jpg . The web site for the project itself is at http://cs.ru.ac.za/homes/g97rc001 . I would appreciate any feedback, etc. Thanx Mike ------------------------------------------------------------- "I took the money, I started to drink You miss too much these days if you stop to think" -U2 Michael Rorke mrorke@cs.ru.ac.za Computer Science Masters mike@rucus.ru.ac.za Rhodes University, Grahamstown http://rucus.ru.ac.za/~mike ------------------------------------------------------------- * Standard ANSI disclaimer *