At 07:25 PM 11/26/96 -0700, you wrote:
>>
>
>Yes, but computers (with special emphasis on Internet
>Technologies, and even more emphasis on VR technologies)
>change at an incredible rate.  At the same time, I
>would agree that a fully immersive VR experience may
>be beyond the finances/usefulness of a museum.

I agree - but it does not stop quite a few museums in Britain and the rest
of Europe issuing plans which involve a significant commitment to something
they are at least trying to sell the public as fully immersive VR without
any consideration of Moore's law

>>You can get an O2 from SGI for about $6,000 (if
>>I have played with these and I'm afraid I didn't rate them very highly
>
>Youch!  Really?  That's a discriminating user :)  But,
>you are correct; the O2 still isn't a Reality Monster,
>or even a Reality Engine, but it _is_ a low-cost approximation.

... and I got to poke around at an early pre-release version which may not
have been debugged, so it's probably worth me taking another look when I get
involved with another potential VR project

 I'd say, they day
>when a museum can afford a fabulous VR display are not far
>off at all...
>
So would I, and that's what I find frustrating with the present sort of
interest, people going for weedy stuff which won't match the attached hype
when if they held off they could have something that will. Going off
prematurely could get museum VR a bad rep.

>>>
>
>> problem, most people were happy using the joystick, it was actual immersion
>> that confused them, and I think the joystick made this worse.
>
>O.K.  Well, the problem there is that the scene tries to simulate
>reality.  If you want a scene to be visually real(istic) and you
>want navigation in the same way that people navigate the actual
>world, you are going to fail.

That's right, but a lot of people I have spoken too here about using VR in
museums want to use it to simulate reality - to put a coal mine or a
medieval village in the museum for people to walk round. I would prefer
something more abstract myself - gets round a lot of the hassles and is more
exciting in the long term - a lot of people want it to be a low budget time
machine.

>If computers are to be useful tools, they are going to have to be
>exploited in un-real ways.  Virtual Reality that _simulates_
>reality, offers no advantage over reality.  Moving through a scene
>by moving your feet, turning your head to gain another view,
>these are conventions of reality and constrictions of virtual
>reality.  "Alternative Interface" is the name of the game in VR.

This is definitely what we should be about - science centres have always
been at their most vividly exciting when they do something unexpected with
technology. Mind you, I was in the Musee d'Orsay yesterday and they have a
totally cool gallery walkround CD-ROM which would translate very well to VR
to allow someone who can't get to Paris to go round the place, see the pics
and get a load of useful background information. It was almost as good as
the real thing I'd just been down, it's just that if you get too close to
the Renoir you get pixels instead of an attendant shouting at you.
>
>
>>
>
>> ideally I'd like to get some sort of force
>> feedback too.
>
>Yikes!  That's pretty advanced stuff.  I cannot be
>done passively, and requires more immersion than most
>anyone would stand.  It's one thing to be viewing a
>cathedral, it's another to be touching it ;)  But,
>it's definately good that you want so much!

It's just that some of the ones I've been in involve manipulating things
like protein molecules or toy aircraft and it is much harder to handle them
when you don't know when you are holding them and your fingers slide through.
>
>> response as a result of premature overuse it will not be good for us.
>
>That is one way of thinking about it.  I don't know
>if there is a lot of competition among museums, or if
>there is a chance that one museum might rush to do something
>virtual just to get attention.

This is very much the case here in the UK with the Millennium Fund projects,
almost every other megabucks bid has "Virtual Reality" in large letters on
it somewhere, and certainly the organisations I've dealt with who've done
this showed no sign of either being very clear about the capacity of the
technology or what they actually wanted as content - apart from fairly banal
walkarounds. As I said before, I think it can be useful to take people
places they cannot go, but this cannot be the only thing we use it for - we
are capable of synthesising new uses for the stuff, which is great.
Unfortunately here it is being used as a marketing tool which is supposed to
say "Look - we've got the up to the minute sexy tech"


You are right that the
>longer you wait, the better things will get, however that
>is _always_ the case.  If you wait a year, things will be
>better in a year and a half.  Virtual Reality is constantly
>getting better.  At some point, someone has to do something.

I agree, but what I see happening here is places promising one thing and
going for technology which can only deliver something very inferior eg one
project which put VR at the forefront of its PR with a prominent picture of
someone in a Virtuality helmet and data glove, but were actully proposing a
flight simulator as delivery, or others who put it in a high profile, but
only plan to buy one unit when the place has a planned throughput of over
100,000 a year.
>
>> I intend to keep an eye on developments and when something meets my
>> ...needs...I'll go for it.
>
>I can say now, that whenever you decide to do something,
>it will be amazing.  You certainly know enough, and are
>picky enough not to get fooled.  I'd love to see what you
>come up with!
>

        That's very kind of you! hope you won't be disappointed!
>
>
>
>
IAN SIMMONS

- A mind stretched by new ideas never returns to the same shape

                                        - RALPH WALDO EMERSON