>have been debugged, so it's probably worth me taking another look when
>I get involved with another potential VR project

Well, the rendering engine is still going to be OpenGL, which
will only have improved speed.  In order to be fully _impressed_
you'd want ray-tracing.  Now, I know DEC has a Ghz processor,
and That's about what it would take to do live time ray-tracing :)
So, unless you see something with a different resolution, it
will mostly _look_ the same; just run differently.

>>when a museum can afford a fabulous VR display are not far
>>off at all...
>stuff which won't match the attached hype

That's a problem with VR.  The hype is huge right now.  I don't
know why.  Almost everything electronic is now being refered to
as either "cyber" or "virtual."  There is a problem if you can't
live up to your hype, but VR has capabilities (other than techinical)
that are impressive.  If it's true that people would rather use
a two-dimensional graphical interface than a one-dimensional textual
interface, then, maybe, they would rather use a three-dimensional
interface over anything.  There are alternative ways of interfacing
with information in VR that no other interface can represent.
Even the current state of VR can live up to the hype of something
like Windows3.D, or VR-OS.  The first graphical interfaces/OS's
weren't nearly as graphically sophisticated at they are now, but
they did offer a way of dealing with all the information on a computer
in a way that was much more intuitive/simple.  VR/3-D can do the
same thing.  Museums are a great example of people with a tremendous
amount of three-dimensional data.  Interacting with all the "data"
in a museum is nearly impossible.  VR would let you do it in a
way that is not only superior to any computer interface, but also
in a way that offers clear advantages over reality...

>>exploited in un-real ways.
>This is definitely what we should be about -
>if you get too close to
>the Renoir you get pixels instead of an attendant shouting at you.

Here's another way that VR out-shines reality.  There's no reason
why the program couldn't be written to show greater and greater
detailed scans/photos of the painting as you approach--eventually
displaying microscopic images.  You can't do _all_ things with
VR, but you can do an infinite number of other things :)

>>> ideally I'd like to get some sort of force feedback too.
>>Yikes!
>It's just that some ... involve manipulating things

Force feedback can be nice for something like that.  But, what
I'm wondering is, how often do you get force feedback at a
museum?  I mean, I've never really been allowed to touch things.
It would be nice, and definately an advantage over reality, but
I don't think anyone would miss it.

>>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

Aaah! I will read the rest of your letter with an accent ;)

>>I can say now, that whenever you decide to do something,
>>it will be amazing.
>        That's very kind of you! hope you won't be disappointed!

I know I won't be.  If you're already interested in insuring
the "purity" (the non-exploited hype) of VR, _and_  you're
interested in "synthesizing" some truly un-real experiences,
you're way ahead of the game.

.............................................Pioneer Joel