[sci.virtual-worlds] Getting involved in V.R. as a student

faindan@milton.u.washington.edu (Daniel Fain) (02/22/91)

A thousand apologies if this has been addressed somewhere and I just
didn't see it, but I would like to know if anyone has been keeping track
of what schools have graduate programs where students can get involved
in virtual reality research?  I am aware of some of the largest programs
such as the MIT Media Lab, and here in the Northwest we have the Human
Interface Technology Laboratory, but how many other less-publicized
programs are there?

I am curious because I'm an undergraduate and have so far studied mostly
artifical intelligence and cognitive science, but see a big future in this
new interface technology.  There must be a lot of other undergraduates
who are interested in this field, and it might be useful if they knew who
to contact.

Thank you for your help,

Dan Fain
Evergreen State College

holloway@cs.unc.edu (Richard Holloway) (02/22/91)

>From article <16956@milton.u.washington.edu>, by faindan@milton.u.washington.ed
u (Daniel Fain):
| 
| 
| A thousand apologies if this has been addressed somewhere and I just
| didn't see it, but I would like to know if anyone has been keeping track
| of what schools have graduate programs where students can get involved
| in virtual reality research?  I am aware of some of the largest programs
| such as the MIT Media Lab, and here in the Northwest we have the Human
| Interface Technology Laboratory, but how many other less-publicized
| programs are there?

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been doing virtual
worlds research for over twenty years, dating back to the GROPE-I molecular
graphics system.  The research emphasis is and has always been on using this
technology to solve real-world problems. 

There was a project summary posted several months back in this group by
Warren Robinett, the project manager of the head-mounted display project at
UNC;  perhaps periodic re-posts are warranted.  A copy of Warren's original
posting follows. [MODERATOR'S NOTE: I've asked for an updated summary to be
posted. The original can be FTP'ed from the archives. - Bob Jacobson]

In addition, the January '91 edition of Smithsonian describes some of the
work going on at UNC and elsewhere.

[MODERATOR'S NOTE: The original Warren Robinett posting is in the archives,
located at milton.u.washington.edu, in /public/virtual-worlds/postings, in the
compressed listings for Feb 90. Exact date is 02-09, about a year ago.]
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pepke@SCRI1.SCRI.FSU.EDU (Eric Pepke) (02/23/91)

The University of Central Florida has Master and PhD opportunities in VR.  
I went down there for a visit a week or so ago.  They have been doing a 
lot of work with flight and tank simulators and are just now getting into 
VR.  Right now they're searching for 50 Hz eyephones that they can hook up 
to their two-headed E&S system.  They are doing some interesting work with 
VR network protocols.

The contact I have is

Dr. J. Michael Moshell
Director, Visual Systems Laboratory
Institute for Simulation and Training
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL 32816

Eric Pepke                                    INTERNET: pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute MFENET:   pepke@fsu
Florida State University                      SPAN:     scri::pepke
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052                    BITNET:   pepke@fsu

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