Virtual reality resource guide. Shaw, Julie AI Expert - vol. 7, no. 8 Ascension Technology Corp. A Flock of Birds. A system for simultaneously tracking the position and orientation of as many as 20 tiny receivers, typically attached to body segments. Each receiver is updated 100 times/second. Optional configurations extend tracking to about eight feet or more. Price: $4,945 and up. The Ascension Bird. A single transmitter/single receiver, six-degrees-of-freedom measurement system with a range of about 36 inches. Motions are tracked to accuracies of 0.5[degrees] and 0.1 inches at a 100Hz update rate. Uses pulsed DC fields to minimize the distortion effects of nearby conductive metals. Price: $1,850-$3,120. Ascension Technology Corp., P.O. Box 527, Burlington, Vt. 05402, (802) 655-7879, fax (802) 655-5904. Covox Inc. SoundMaster II. An audio, music, and voice-recognition system for DOS-based PCs. SoundMaster II is used for interactive voice input/output with many DOS and multimedia applications. Price: $229.95. Covox Inc., 675 Conger St., Eugene, Ore. 97402, (503) 342-1271, fax (503) 342-1283. Crystal River Engineering Convolvotron. A high-speed digital signal-processing system capable of presenting eight binaural sound sources in a virtual environment. A two-board set for PCs, the Convolvotron forms the basis for a range of products from high-end parallel processors to lower-cost single-source modules. Price: contact vendor. Crystal River Engineering, 12350 Wards Ferry Rd., Groveland, Calif. 95321, (209) 962-6382, fax (209) 962-4873. Digital Image Design Inc. inScape. A hardware/software system that creates a VR "stage" inside your monitor. With the use of stereo glasses that are tracked in space, a 3D image of a model can be be viewed from different angles. Price: contact vendor. Digital Image Design Inc., 170 Claremont Ave., Suite 6, New York, N.Y. 10027, (212) 222-5236, fax (212) 864-1189. Dimension International Desktop VR. A turnkey hardware and software system that allows real-time interaction with virtual worlds on a desktop PC. Superscape software and PC-based hardware includes graphics cards, monitor, and six-axis controller. Price: [pounds]12,800. Virtual Reality Toolkit. An interactive virtual world creation utility. Requires Desktop VR hardware system. Includes shape editor, world editor, shape and object libraries, and utilities. Price: [pounds]10,500. AutoWalk. Allows real-time walkthrough of AutoCAD-designed models and drawings. Includes DXF-to-VRT file-format translator and SuperScape visualizer software. Price: contact vendor. Dimension International, Zephyr One, Calleva Park, Aldermaston RG7 4QW, Berkshire, England, phone/fax (44) 734 810077. Division Ltd. PROvision. An integrated VR system that can sustain 35K Gouraud-shaded polygons, per eye, per second, into a head-mounted or freestanding stereoscopic display; available with options for binaural sound, body tracking, and gestural interface. Price: from $50,000. SUPERvision. A scalable VR system that includes a parallel image-generation system. Includes features of PROvision but also allows mixing with real-time video in a system capability of 30K-480K Gouraud-shaded polygons per second, including texture mapping. Price: from $150,000. dVS. A complete software operating environment that allows the integration of applications and periperals required in VR systems; includes a stereoscopic display, the DataGlove, 3D mice, and binaural sound. Price: contact vendor. Division Ltd., Quarry Rd., Chipping, Sodbury, Bristol BS17 6AX, England, phone (44) 454 324527, fax (44) 454 323059 (distributed in the United States by Telepresence Research). Evans & Sutherland ESIG-2000. A compact, special-purpose computer image generator designed to produce imagery for VR applications. Generates photorealistic 3D images using texturing, anti-aliasing, and smooth-shading techniques at the rate of 60 images/second. Price: Contact vendor. Evans & Sutherland, 600 Komas Dr., P.O. Box 59700. Salt Lake City, Utah 94158, (801) 582-5847, fax (801) 582-5848. EXOS Inc. Dexterous HandMaster System. A precision exoskeleton that measures 20 joint motions of the human hand and its spatial position. Continuously measures the three bending motions and lateral motion for each finger with 0.5[degrees] accuracy. Price: $15,000. TouchMaster. Provides nonreactive tactile feedback during interaction with remote environments. Uses variable amplitude and frequency to give feedback for PC-controlled environments. Price: $6,000. EXOS Inc., 8 Blanchard Rd., Burlington, Mass. 01803, (617) 229-2075, fax (617) 270-5901. Fake Space Labs Molly. A teleoperated camera platform that transmits sounds and images from remote locations. Molly can rotate completely in all axes and can be augmented with stereo cameras, LEEP video optics, and binaural microphones for a maximum payload of up to 10 pounds. Price: contact vendor. Binocular Omni-Orientation Monitor (BOOM). A counterbalanced, monochrome, CRT-based stereoscopic viewing device that enables interactive, real-time viewpoint control of 3D environments. It is designed as an alternative to head-mounted displays. Price: contact vendor. BOOM2C. A color version of the BOOM with a resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels. This product has six-degrees-of-freedom position tracking and can be switched from color to monochrome. Price: contact vendor. Data Vision Modeling System. A system integrator for linking head-coupled, immersive-display technology with a molecular-modeling graphics workstation. This system lets the user change viewpoints by walking through and around the molecule, thereby gaining a feeling for the spatial characteristics of the data. Price: contact vendor. Fake Space Labs, 935 Hamilton Ave., Menlo Park, Calif. 94025, (415) 688-1940, fax (415) 688-1949. Focal Point 3D Audio Focal Point. A CD-quality, convolved binaural sound system for VR audio displays, teleconferencing, and music. It is modular, so one host can position any number of sounds. Focal Point includes mouse, headtracking, and MIDI software; it is available for Macintosh II and PC. Price: $1,795. Focal Point 3D Audio, 1402 Pine Ave., Suite 127, Niagara Falls, N.Y. 14301, phone/fax (416) 963-9188. Latent Image Development Corp. StereoSynthesis. A process to convert standard 2D film, video, or still images to true stereoscope 3D format. It may be used with any type of 3D glasses or display system, including VR immersion goggles, and therefore provides a means to integrate existing, standard media into VR environments. Price: contact vendor. Latent Image Development Corp., Two Lincoln Square, New York, N.Y. 10023, (212) 873-5487. LEEP Systems Inc. Cyberface 2. A head-mounted display that provides a wide field of view by diverging the axis of the viewing optics. The unit accepts RGB color with NTSC or PAL synch and can use binaural-sound earphones. Price: $8,100. LEEP Standard OEM Viewing Optics. A very wide-angle stereoscopic-optical assembly. Six large elements give a 90 degree direct field of view and 140 degree corneal and peering field. Price: $3,000. Parallel Axis LEEP Format Camera Lens. A set of camera lenses that provide the correct LEEP video format on a 2/3" diagonal CCD in a C-mount camera. Price: $1,900 per pair. Photographic Virtual Reality Demonstrator. A hand-held demonstrator with one model ARV-1 viewing optics assembly, diffusing slide holder, and six photographic slides. This demonstrates the immersion of very-wide-field video and uses OEM optics, so can be used for experiments. Price $940. Telehead Model B. A wide-angle stereoscopic remote camera platform for telepresence applications. It produces the LEEP format output for Cyberface 2 head-mounted display. Cameras and external ears for microphones are optional. Price: $3,750. LEEP Systems Inc., 241 Crescent St., Waltham, Mass. 02154, (617) 647-1395, fax (617) 899-9602. Logitech 2D/3D Mouse and HeadTracker. Line-of-sight ultrasonic devices for entering 2D and 3D coordinates into a computer. Designed for CAD, robotics, computer simulation, high-end computer graphics and animation, scientific visualization, and virtual-reality applications. Price: contract vendor. Logitech, 6505 Kaiser Dr., Fremont, Calif. 94555, (510) 795-8500. Polhemus Inc. 3Draw Digitizer. A 3D digitizer tablet that lets complex geometries be entered into a database. Eliminates line-of-sight problems. 3Draw constists of a 16" x 21" tablet, a puck, and a stylus. Price: contact vendor. 3Space Isotrak II. A six-degree-of-freedom tracking system with slightly reduced specifications. Consists of a systems electronic unit, a single transmitter, and one or two receivers. It can be used as a digitized with an optional stylus and footswitch. Price: contact vendor. 3Space Fastrak. An electromagnetic six-degrees-of-freedom tracking system that reduces latency to four milliseconds. It has an update rate of 120Hz, an operational range of 10 feet, and four systems can be multiplexed to allow up to 16 receivers. Designed for VR and high-end computer graphics and animation. Price: contact vendor. Polhemus Inc., P.O. Box 560, Colchester, Vt. 05446, (802) 655-3159, fax (802) 655-1439. Sense8 Corp. WorldToolKit. A set of more than 230 functions written in C that enables developers to build 3D graphical and VR applications. Functions include tools for writing custom sensor drivers to rapid-prototyping of real-time simulations. Price: $3,500. Sense8 Corp., 1001 Bridgeway, Suite 477, Sausalito, Calif. 94965, (415) 331-6318, fax (415) 331-9148. Shooting Star Technology ADL-1. A six-degree-of-freedom head position and orientation tracker that measures the angles of a lightweight jointed arm. The microprocessor uses the angle data to compute the head's geometry and sends the data to a host computer via a serial connection at 300 updates/second. Price: $1,499. Shooting Star Technology, 1921 Holdom Ave., Burnaby, B.C. Canada V5B 3W4, (604) 298-8574, fax (604) 298-8580. SimGraphics Engineering Corp. Flying Mouse. An input device that combines existing 3D and 3D input-device characteristics. Possible applications include manipulation of 3D objects in CAD/CAM, animation, molecular modeling, and scientific visualization. Price: contact vendor. VR workbench. A collection of libraries of building user interfaces, controlling 3D devices, and managing information displays. Price: contact vendor. SimGraphics Engineering Corp., 1137 Huntington Dr., South Pasadena, Calif. 91030, (213) 255-0900, fax (213) 255-0987. StereoGraphics Corp. CrystalEyes. Electronic eyewear for viewing stereoscopic images. It has LCD lenses and is lightweight, wireless, battery powered, and controlled by an infrared signal. Price: $1,300. CrystalEyes/VR. An enhanced version of CrystalEyes with a 6D position detector for "look-around" capability. Price: $3,900. StereoGraphics Corp., 2171 E. Francisco Blvd., San Rafael, Calif. 94901, (415) 459-4500, fax (415) 459-3020. StrayLight Corp. PhotoVR. A desktop VR system offering photorealistic imaging on 386-based DOS systems. Photo VR offers scene complexity with more than 100,000 polygons, texture mapping, photo shading, and interactive real-time performance. Price: from $995. StrayLight Corp., 150 Mt. Bethel Rd., Warren, N.J. 07059, (908) 580-0086, fax (908) 580-0092. Telepresence Research Telepresence Mobile Robot. An integrated system consisting of boom-mounted stereoscopic viewer, wireless communications, and self-powered mobile platform carrying a camera system and range sensors. The three-degrees-of-freedom camera mechanism tracks the user's head in real time. Price: contact vendor. Telepresence Research, 320 Gabarda Way, Portola Valley, Calif. 94028, (415) 854-4420, fax (415) 854-3141. Virtual 'S' Ltd. Virtual Reality Studio. A dedicated production facility that specializes in the application of VR. It integrates and programs systems to create real applications by evaluating real-world objectives and applying creative designs and production skills. Price: $3,600/day. Integrated Development System. A program for audio-file translation that converts AutoDesk's .3DF CAD files to Virtual 'S's generic studio format and can then be integrated and run on real-time VR systems. Price: $1,100. Virtual 'S' Ltd., The Limes, 123 Mortlake High St., London SW14 8SN, England, (44) 81 3929000, fax (44) 81 3922424. Virtual Research Flight Helmet. A full-color, wide field-of-view head mounted display for use with all VR applications. Features a rugged, lightweight shell construction. Fit is adjusted with a single knob. Has choice of position-sensing systems. Price: contact vendor. Virtual Research, 1313 Socorro Ave., Sunnyvale, Calif. 94089, (408) 739-7114, fax (408) 739-8586. Virtual Technologies CyberForce. Provides computer-programmable grip force feedback to CyberGlove user. Use the CyberForce system to detect contact and "feel" the compliance of telemanipulated objects. Price: for all products, contact vendor. CyberGlove. An 18-sensor instrumented glove with 0.5 degree resolution, two bend sensors and one abduction sensor per finger, plus thumb and pinkie rotation, and wrist pitch and yaw sensors. Comes with VirtualHand display software. CyberWear. A product line of body-instrument garments, including CyberArm, CyberVest, and CyberSuit. Cyberwear measures body motions, creating a movable body image of more than head and hands. GestureGlove. Provides easy recognition of more than 30 dynamic hand formations of a CyberGlove user. The recognition software learns any hand formation and allows the user to select the text output for each hand formation. CyberCAD. A virtual computer-aided environment that lets the user create, edit, and manipulate 3D virtual objects in a virtual room. Pull on object faces or stretch vertices and edges, rotate objects, magnify or group objects, change colors, or cut holes. VirtualHand. Software calibrates and displays a graphic representation of hand and finger motions on a computer screen. Virtual Technologies, P.O. Box 5984, Stanford, Calif. 94309, (415) 599-2331. The Vivid Group Mandala Virtual World Authoring System. A system that uses a video camera to submerge the user's live image into VR environments using a mouse-driven authoring interface. Price: $495 for Amiga, $695 for Macintosh and DOS. The Vivid Group, 317 Adelaide St. West, Suite 302, Toronto, Ont. M5V 1P9 Canada, (416) 340-9290, fax (416) 348-9809. VPL Research Inc. Audiosphere. A complete 3D sound spatialization system for VR. Includes sampler, synthesizer, 128-processor Convolvotron and software development tools, and Audiosphere RB2 software. Provides real-time sound spatialization for four simultaneous sources. Price: contact vendor. Dataglove Model 2P. A hand-gesture sensing glove that uses fiber optics to sense finger flexion. An internal tracking system returns the hand position and orientation to the host computer via RS-232 and RS-422 interface. Price: $6,300-$8,800. Eyephone HRX. VPL's highest-resolution eyephone with 720 x 480 pixel resolution per color LCD, 108 [degrees] horizontal field of view. Weight: 2.5 pounds. Includes proprietary MTF optics, accepts RS-170A or NTSC video input. Price: $49,000. Eyephone LX. VPL's standard-resolution eyephone with 442 x 238 pixel resolution per color LCD, 108 [degrees] horizontal field of view. Weight: 2.5 pounds. Includes proprietary MTF optics, accepts NTSC video input. Price: $6,650. Microcosm. A complete virtual reality system on Macintosh. Includes DataGlove XUR, Eyephone XUR, tracking system, stereo audio system, VR graphics accelerator, RB2 Swivel, BodyElectric (visual programming language) Isaac, and Macintosh Quadra 900. Up to four Microcosms can be networked simultaneously. Price: $75,000. RB2 Professional. A complete high-performance virtual reality system for the Silicon Graphics Power series and Skywriter series. Includes DataGlove Model 2+, Eyephone LX, spatial tracking system, Swivel XVR, BodyElectric 4.0, and Isaac. Compatible with Radiosity, Virtualization, and Audiosphere. Price: $65,000. Virtualization. Imports and "virtualizes" prebuilt 3D models for use in virtual realities. Performs model virtualizations via thicknesses, hierarchy, and constraint mapping. Virtualizes Alias, AutoCAD, Arris, Wavefront, TDI Explore, MultiGen, Catai, Intergraph, Swivel3D, CubiComp, and Vertigo. Price: $10,000. VPL Research Inc., 950 Tower Lane, 14th Floor, Foster City, Calif. 94404, (415) 312-0200, fax (415) 312-9356. VREAM Inc. VREAM Virtual Reality Development System. An off-the-shelf VR system for DOS-based PCs. The system allows users to define, enter, and interact with 3D virtual worlds in real time, using a mouse-driven point-and-click user interface. Price: $1,495. VREAM Inc., 2568 North Clark St., Suite 250, Chicago, Ill. 60614, (312) 477-0425, fax (312) 477-9702. V.R.G. High Res HMD. A high-performance, wide field-of-view, head-ported display, delivering a resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels per eye at two arc minutes per pixel. Designed for use in VR simulation and telepresence systems, it weighs 2.5 pounds. Price: $92,000. V.R.G., 800 Follin Lane, Suite 270, Vienna, Va. 22180, (703) 242-0030, fax (703) 242-5220. W Industries Ltd. Expality. A multiprocessor computer system designed for Virtuality system. Uses RISC-based, upgradable graphics subsystem. Includes CD-ROM, fixed and floppy disks, and multichannel sound simulation system. Price: contact vendor. Virtuality 1000 CS. A portable CyberSpace system including a space joystick controller. Can be used to network up to four persons for CyberSpace interaction. Price: approximately $60,000. Virtuality 1000 SD. A sit-down system with joystick or steering wheel controls, which can perform the functions of the CS 1000. Price: approximately $50,000. Virtuality Head 4 Head. An interactive presentation package to use with up to four Virtuality CS or SD systems. Provides multimonitor displays and spectator viewing capability. Price: contact vendor. Desette. A software system for Virtuality-based systems that enables models created on other graphics platforms to be viewed and manipulated in Virtuality. Price: $1,500. Animette. A VR operating system for virtuality systems that includes a developer's toolkit, position sensing, sound, and graphic-programming systems for third-party developers. Virtuality Camera. A camera provides a third-person perspective on the activities taking place in an interactive virtual world. A rule base ensures the most interesting activities are viewed. Price: $16,000. W Industries Ltd., Virtuality House, 3 Oswin Rd., Brailsford Industrial Park, Leicester LE3 1HR, England, (44) 533 542127, fax (44) 533 471855. Xtensory Inc. TacTools. Controller and tactors using shape-memory alloy to provide tactile feedback in VR applications. Controller boxes can be added as needed to provide more tactors. Uses standard PC or workstation serial port. Controllers can be operated individually. Price: contact vendor. XTen Worlds. A software toolkit for building virtual worlds. Interfaces to common graphics data formats and data visualization tools. Includes 3D world editor and run-time system. Runs under UNIX on PCs and workstations. Price: contact vendor. Sync Link. A complete VR environment comprised of a development system plus a library of subrouting calls. Allows world building and importing, multiple participants in shared virtual worlds and real time, and supports most VR input and output devices. Price: contact vendor. Xtensory Inc., 140 Sunridge Dr., Scotts Valley, Calif. 95066, phone/fax (408) 439-0600.