rick@hanauma.Stanford.EDU (Richard Ottolini) (08/10/90)
I would like to see postings about interesting systems and results presented at this week's Dallas SIGGRAPH.
ddt@convex.COM (David Taylor) (08/11/90)
In article <1928@med.Stanford.EDU> rick@hanauma.Stanford.EDU (Richard Ottolini) writes: >I would like to see postings about interesting systems and results >presented at this week's Dallas SIGGRAPH. There were literally dozens of spectacular exhibits. However, perhaps the most interesting, most innovative system was VPI's virtual reality machine. You may have seen clips about it in the paper or on the news. Using Swivel 3D, Body Electric, and other misc. software on a Macintosh, this system gathers data about the position of your head and the position of your hand and creates a model for rendering using the information about your last position and the model of an artificial world. It then sends this model to two SGI 4D workstations. One of them renders an image for the left eye, and the other renders an image for the right eye. These images are displayed on a lightweight pair of color LCD screens that hang in front of the user's eyes. Furthermore, the Mac sends this same information to a large Convolution 3-D sound system. This system generates sounds that actually seem to be to your right, left, behind, etc. They have written perhaps a dozen artificial worlds and claim that they can take very little time to write (they wrote a rather intricate playground in 2.5 hours). The artifical worlds can be highly interactive, too. As you move forward (by pointing your finger), the world drifts by. If you touch something, a short ding will confirm it. If you grab something (curl your fingers), you'll hear a "snatching" sound (can't describe w/ words). If you let it go, you'll hear yet another confirmation sound. The system really is incredible, and what's more, they were letting people have demonstrations done to them. As you can imagine, the line grew exponentially, and the appointments quickly got out of hand and filled up. Alias, Convex, and many other companies were continuously displaying animation shorts produced using their software or hardware. I was not able to attend any of the courses, panels, or paper presentations. It really was an impressive exhibit. =-ddt-> -- .,;: (214) 497-4860, ddt@convex.com or ddt@vondrake.cc.utexas.edu :;,. .,;: Remember, flatulation is only natural :;,.