harry@harlqn.co.uk (Harry Fearnhamm) (05/03/91)
[ BBC2, England, 29th April, 40 minutes ]
Well I was as impressed as I expected to be. The program mentioned
all the relevent aspect of VR I think the layperson can expect to take
in, and presented in a sort of VR environment, ie, the links were all
related to a VR `museum' through which we moved, looking at the hisory
(!) of VR. The main presenter, Sir Michael Hordern, is a well known
English actor, but the narrative was also given over to VR
personalities such as John Barlow (writer of lyrics for the Grateful
Dead), Dr Michael McGreevy of NASA Ames Research Centre, Dr Thomas
Furness, ex US Airforce and Jaron Lanier, VPL Research Inc., Gareth
Edwards (a graphics designer), Michael Wahrman (animations for RoboCop
II)...
The first scene was with Michael Frayn, who wrote "A Very Private
Life" 25 years ago, which anticipated many feartures of VR (he's one
of many writers to do so, but Horizon chose him), and he joined
Johnothan Waldern (Mr BattleTech!), of W Industries, in one of the
standard room/garden environments.
Barlow then took up the story, mentioning the Victorian stereopticon
device (an early ViewMaster!), followed by Morten Highlake (sp? They
didn't print his name!), who created the Sensorama in the 60's (an
all-sense system, with touch - vibration and wind - and smell as well
as stereo surround sound/vision). Next was Ivan Sutherland, who
developed a system at the University of Utah in '65, which had a head
position sensor stuck to the ceiling (called the Sword of
Damacles...), which overlaid very basic shapes onto a special set of
goggles (and needed the usual banks of hardware to do it).
Furness introduced the Headsup Display and mentioned that <60 degree
angle of vision display remained a viewed object, but >80 degrees put
the user inside the display (and stereo images more so).
We then saw McGreevy's (and Scott Fisher's) basic `window' system with
menus and windows manipulated by hand movements.
The next part was about quality graphics and Gareth Edwards was fairly
critical about the quality of current VR compared to the high quality
computer animations currently being produced, and said that the
program piece (a solid view around one of Escher's Drawings) took 50
minutes PER FRAME to produce. Now I was at a Silicon Graphics
exhibition in Cambridge the other day and they said they knew Edwards
and that the rendering software he uses is by no means the fastest
available, and that Alias (?) was much better - the demos they had of
the reflections of images on a glass and a chromed VW beetle case were
mighty impressive, but I'm afraid I can't comment on these two
opposing views. Perhaps someone can comment on the availability of
realtime renderers and their limitations, but SG were saying that you
could add more hardware and do a certain amount of it in parallel
(mind you, with systems at $50K-$100K a throw, it's not exactly for
the masses...)
McGreevy then showed us the virtual planetary terrain exploration
system, and Robert Stone of Advanced Robotics discussed telepresence
and the use of fobots in hostile environments, although having seen
their effectiveness at Chernobyl (they *all* failed), many of the
scenarios he mentioned will need some looking at (but that's not *our*
problem).
Furness then discussed representations of abstract data, such as
shares on the Exchange as a field of wheat, and buying shares as
picking the stalks. Will the buyers go for it, I wonder, or do they
prefer runnung around and shouting a lot?
Waldern then presented his BattleTech system - I must say that when I
tried it, I spend my whole time trying to explore the terrain rather
than shooting the enemy. If an exploration game were developed, would
it really be that dull? Combine it with McGreevy's Virtual
Exploration system, and I think a lot of people would go for it.
Ultimately, I'd like to be a whale in the deep or an eagle in the
sky...
CYBERTHON! Of course this got a mention. We were presented with a
chaotic maze of rooms and presentations - marvellous! The mix of
`hippies' and `yuppies' was very interesting - Howard Rheingold of the
Whole Earth Review pointed out that it was more commercial than the
`hippies' would like, but that a 90's statement of what VR is about
ought to reflect commercial realism. Gibson was there and spoke of
level(s) of irony being missed by some readers of his work; was he
referring to reality imitating fiction by imitating reality? (work it
out...)
Wahrman pointed out a hitherto unmentioned danger - not the
BattleTech/morality problem, but the overexpectation of the general
public; we still have a long way to go with quality, and when the
public sees quality computer animations and compares them with what is
currently practical in VR, they will find it wanting.
Brenda Laurel, of Telepresence Research, also pointed out that the
Dark Side is not being discussed. Now the Dark Side is a moveable
feast, and with few exceptions (Virtual Sadism/Rape &c.) the targets
are rather iffy - sex/drugs type things - which the moral minority
always goes on about (because it is dangerously obsessed with them),
and which Lanier and Barlow also mentioned as being the first things
they will think of if they're not sure about something (the three
questions: (1) what the hell is it? (2) can it be used for sex? (3)
can it be used for drugs?)
Furness mentioned the possibility of microlasers writing direct onto
the retina - is this pure speculation, or is research going on in this
field?
Finally Barlow spoke of the macromyopia society suffers with new
technology - overestimating the initial impact and underestimating the
long term effects. It will start out as a gimmick, but one day we'll
wake up and it will be everywhere...
All in all I think it will give a favourable impression to anyone not
familiar with VR. It was, if this is the right phrase to use, very
down to earth...
--
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