ba-rt451@barney.bgsu.edu (Doug Landers) (11/26/90)
I have been doing research on virtual reaality and have one final question. For as long as I can remember 'experts' have been telling the US public that watching TV close is bad for our eyes, and that pregnant women should avoid computer terminals. Is there something special about the EyePhones that don't hurt the human eyes? I have read quite a bit on VR, thanks to some of you, and that question never came up in any of my readings. Is there something that I missed that would make it alright to have screens a few inches from my eyes. It seems as though that would cause a strain on my eyes. Am I way off base? Are the future VR users all going to be hurting their eyes after each VR experience? I have finished my paper, but I am still interested in responses to my question. Thank you for your time. Doug Landers BGSU CS student ba-rt451@barney.bgsu.edu
pepke@SCRI1.SCRI.FSU.EDU (Eric Pepke) (11/26/90)
In article <11675@milton.u.washington.edu> ba-rt451@barney.bgsu.edu (Doug Landers) writes: > I have been doing research on virtual reaality and have one final > question. For as long as I can remember 'experts' have been telling > the US public that watching TV close is bad for our eyes, and that > pregnant women should avoid computer terminals. Is there something > special about the EyePhones that don't hurt the human eyes? The EyePhones use LCD displays, not CRT's. LCD's run on low voltages and so pose no electrocution risk, do not emit even the tiny amount of X-rays that CRT's do, and do not emit the currently controversial VLF fields that the magnetic beam deflection mechanisms of CRT's do. So, all those dire warnings don't apply. Now, this doesn't mean that having those screens there does not cause unpleasant effects. At minimum, one is going to have the same difficulties that one has with 3-D movies. The screen is at a fixed distance and so requires a certain focus, but the binocularity information may indicate various distances to the objects on the screen. Also, people often exaggerate the binocularity to make everything look like Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Pancakes. Unfortunately, all that stuff is wired together in your head, and when you get two different pieces of information about distance, your brain gets confused. Fortunately, none of this seems to do any damage to your eyes or brain, unless of course you get so dizzy that you fall over and hit your head. When your mother told you that you would go blind if you read in dim light, she was wrong. You might go "Ow!" and then you should probably stop, but you won't go blind. There are very few people who have spent more than a few minutes inside one of these things. Those that have say that after a while you adjust to it. When I get mine working, I'll let you know. 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 Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions. Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.
frerichs@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (David J Frerichs) (11/27/90)
The reason there is no uproar about the proximity of Eyephone screens to the eyes is that they are color LCD screens, not CRT tubes. It is CRTs that are dangerous to have close to the eyes for long periods of time. There it is... -dfRERICHS Univ of IL/CU Dept of CompEng
chrise@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Chris Esposito) (12/04/90)
In article <11698@milton.u.washington.edu> pepke@SCRI1.SCRI.FSU.EDU (Eric Pepke) writes: >There are very few people who have spent more than a few minutes inside >one of these things. Those that have say that after a while you adjust to >it. When I get mine working, I'll let you know. I figure I've spent a total of about 20 hours wearing VPL Eyephones since early October with no noticeable effects as yet. I find that with the inter-ocular distance set properly, the 3-D effects are are fairly good as soon as I put them on but improve a bit more after I have been inside the virtual world for more than 5 minutes or so. Taking the 'phones off and coming back to the real world then becomes a slightly unsettling experience - it's almost as if while inside you adapted somewhat to the lower resolution and slower update rates and then had to switch back. -- "A waist is a terrible thing to mind" - Dan Quayle at a Weight Watchers group ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chris Esposito | Internet: chrise@atc.boeing.com Boeing Advanced Technology Center | uucp: ...!uw-june!bcsaic!chrise