cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) (01/12/91)
Just received a brochure and spec book from W Industries, the VR entertainment firm established in Leicester (pronounced "Lester"), England. Very impressive. Beautifully packaged. The "Visette" uses LCDs in a cute, science-fictiony helmet. The "Animette" is a programming language that runs on a dedicated machine. In these materials, there isn't much that's revealed except the action (and one rather misleading graphic that makes it appear as if a laser image is being projected into the eye), but it's all well designed, graphically. W Industries is the brainchild of Dr. John Waldren, a student of Ivan Sutherland, who did his Ph.D. 10 years ago on virtual imagery and who established the company three years ago. He deliberately kept a low profile until his machine was ready. Now he's selling stand-alone amusement-park units, so he reports, with great facility. Other sources say the firm is backed by Japanese money, a claim not surprising given that Fujitsu just bought out ICL, the largest British computer company. No necessary associations, could be just coincidence. John Waldren says that the firm will be coming out this week with both glove and spaceball I/O units, the former with bladders to produce a tactile sensation of mass. I'll post more information as I read the brochure more thoroughly; I'll also post an address, etc. I should add that the equipment is genuine and the glossy promotional pieces do have specs of a sort, just not any exposure of what's inside. Bob Jacobson
cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) (01/13/91)
More on W Industries... W Industries is offering a multi-component Virtual Reality system, as they characterize it, capable of producing entertainment experiences at relatively low cost. A W Industries unit, according to the company's brochure, costs approximately 20,000 pounds, or about $35,000 at current exchange rates. The three system components are the VISETTE, a head worn visor system; the ANIMETTE simulation software; and EXPALITY, a multimedia computer system. W Industries, by the way, has trademarked the term VIRTUALITY and uses it extensively in its promotional material. I doubt this will hold up in the U.S., where I, among others, have been discussing "virtuality" in scientific papers and elsewhere for at least the last year. The Virtuality system includes both sight and sound stimuli, with 65K colors, dynamic self-shadowing, and 32 bit resolution from 50mm to 200,000km (I presume this means the size of the objects as they appear in the Visette; sound offers frequencies from 10Hz to 14KHz, 25 second duration. The network operates at 10Mbytes in 1510 bite packets, accommodating up to 16 users. The computer system is apparently proprietary (though built of standard components), displaying 30K polygons independently, transformed, clipped, and shaded (assuming 50% back faced removed; the update rate is 50MHz. There are four visual channels. The system is currently operable at 230V. The Visette weighs 2.9Kg (what's that, about eight pounds?). It uses stereo think film transistors, with 102K pixels; field of view is 90-120 degrees. Optics include mirror aluminized acrylic lenses, 40mm diameter, 12.5D Plano convex, with Panavision 220 diffusion media filters. Earphones are quadrophonic, two sets of 44mm and 30mm dynamic speakers. There are two models of Virtuality. The first is a sitdown version that looks like the body of a small jet fighter in videogame configuration. I/O devices are two joysticks and various mode selection buttons. The second version of is a standup model. "Experiences" are selected by buttons on a console. The systems are being debuted at the Imagina Television Festival in Monaco, this month, as well as in England. The experiences that are being demonstrated are apparently loaded into a CD-ROM and then accessed by the control system. Waldren founded W Industries after an early, active design career, in 1987. It became part of a "multinational UK group with operations in the US and Japan" in 1989. Looking over the materials, what we have here is an intriguing display system running prepared worlds for limited interaction with the user. For more information, here is W Industries addresses and phones: Dr. John Waldren Managing Director 26-28 Chancery Street Leicester LE1 5WD England (44) (533) 542 127 (44) (533) 548 222 (fax) I would welcome performance reports from any of our British, French, or Monocan (!) participants who have enjoyed a W Industries experience, as it is difficult to fully appreciate this technology from merely reading the brochures. Waldren seems to have designed a useful low- to medium-range virtual worlds system that could become a valuable part of a more comprehensive ensemble. Is this impression well-founded? Also, if anyone has information on the "multinational UK group" behind W Industries (this information is not disclosed in the brochure), that might be useful in determining the strategic value of the W Industries virtual worlds system. Bob Jacobson Moderator
cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) (01/13/91)
The following papers by John Waldern may be available from W Industries. Please note that I incorrectly attributed John Waldern's name in the last two postings. It is correctly "Waldern," not "Waldren". HOLMES, R. & WALDERN, J.D. (1990) Health and Safety Issues Concerning the Virtuality System, CG90 Conference Proceedings, Blenheim Online, Ash Hill Drive, Pinner, Middlesex HA5 2AE, UK. ROWLEY, T. & WALDERN, J.D. (1990) Virtuality Entertainment Systems, Conference Proceedings, Blenheim Online, Ash Hill Drive, Pinner, Middlesex HA5 2AE, UK. WALDERN, J.D. & EDMONDS, E.A. (1986) A three-dimensional computer graphics workstation. In SCRIVENER, S.A.R., ed., Pergamon Infotech for State of the Art for CAD/CAM '85, 24-31. WALDERN, J.D. (1981) A Survey of 3-D Digitizers. Internal Report, HCIRU, Leicester Polytechnic. Bob Jacobson Moderator
cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) (01/13/91)
I forgot. In a recent telephone conversation, John Waldern told me that W Industries is about to introduce a feedback glove. In the artist's conception, it looks like a Mattel glove. But it has bladders to simulate a tactile sensation. Also, if I'm not incorrect, the head-tracking sensors are magnetic resonant devices, like the Polhemus. I believe that W Industries is using Ascension magnetic trackers, however. Bob Jacobson Moderator
cdshaw@cs.UAlberta.CA (Chris Shaw) (01/15/91)
In article <14298@milton.u.washington.edu> Bob Jacobson writes: >A W Industries unit, according to the company's brochure, costs >approximately 20,000 pounds, or about $35,000 at current exchange rates. >The Virtuality system includes sight stimuli, with 65K colors, 16 bit frame buffer. >dynamic self-shadowing, and 32 bit resolution from 50mm to 200,000km Great. Forward into the past. This is called throwing away floating point and doing all your modeling in unsigned fixed-point math, just like Sutherland did in 1967. This strictly limits the scale of "worlds" that you may want to explore. For example, let's say you bought a W box and suddenly got interested in molecular dynamics. What do you do?? Scale everything up by 1,000,000,000,000 (or so) just to get your molecules big enough to not all render in the same spot. Even for human-sized things this resolution is a little coarse. I would have expected between 1mm and 5mm resolution. >sound offers frequencies from 10Hz to 14KHz, 25 second duration. Should be careful what's being specified here. Are these samples? What's the amplitude resolution? Sampling frequency? Or is it a MIDI device? >The network operates at 10Mbytes in 1510 byte >packets, accommodating up to 16 users. Sounds like Ethernet's nominal numbers. You never get anywhere near that in real life. >The computer system is >apparently proprietary (though built of standard components), displaying >30K polygons independently, transformed, clipped, and shaded (assuming >50% back faced removed; the update rate is 50MHz. There are four >visual channels. The system is currently operable at 230V. More holes in the spec. How big are the polygons? Are they screen-aligned? Are they rectangular? How many actually end up on the screen? (This is a "marketing polygons" number, perhaps) Also, how big is the raster? What kind of shading? Flat? Gouraud? Phong? So anyway. 15,000*50 = 1.5million polygons per second. Methinks another typo is involved, and that's 15K polys/second, which is respectable, but by no means stunning. I think that "50MHz" is actually 50Hz, which is British TV vertical refresh rate. Refresh rate is not update rate. By comparison, the i860 can nominally do 50,000 Gouraud shaded 100-pixel marketing polygons per second, using 8-bit pixels, and you get floating point. Actually, the W box is reminiscent of a system that Atari's Advanced Graphics Division showed at SIGGRAPH 89. They didn't market it for whatever reason, but it, too, was supposed to be 12K-15K polys/second, and $10,000-$30,000 (I don't quite remember prices). It sounds like W has done more or less the same set of hacks with more recent technology. >The Visette weighs 2.9Kg (what's that, about eight pounds?). 6.5 Lbs >It uses stereo think film transistors, with 102K pixels; 102400 pixels = 320*320, which is roughly 1/2 * 1/2 British TV resolution. By the way, NTSC is 640*480. In the VPL EyePhone, you get 1/2 * 1/2 NTSC, or 320*240. The real questions are... can the W goggles accept NTSC, and is it tough enough to go on tour? >There are two models of Virtuality. The first is a sitdown version that >looks like the body of a small jet fighter in videogame configuration. >I/O devices are two joysticks and various mode selection buttons. > >The second version of is a standup model. "Experiences" are selected by >buttons on a console. >The experiences that are being demonstrated are apparently loaded into a >CD-ROM and then accessed by the control system. VR-in-a-can. Just add water & stir. Still, looks like fun. More of a video game than a development type system, but what the hell! >Waldren seems to have designed a useful low-to medium-range >virtual worlds system that could become a valuable part >of a more comprehensive ensemble. Is this impression well-founded? Perhaps. The I/O is what's interesting. Also, the dual-signal stereo graphics would be useful, compared to the network-style lashing up you have to do with workstations. The rest of the graphics system is hard to judge, but it looks like a very special purpose hack. >Bob Jacobson -- Chris Shaw University of Alberta cdshaw@cs.UAlberta.ca Now with new, minty Internet flavour! CatchPhrase: Bogus as HELL !