From: John Wann <john1@HMS01.HMS.UQ.OZ.AU>
Subject: REV-PUB: VRnews, HMDs & "secret" research

A number of you will have seen Mike Bevan's editorial in the 
November VRnews on recent HMD "problems".  Our group gets a 
bit of a slap-down, but Mike is just putting forward what a 
number of people feel about the recent publicity and we can live 
with that. What concerns me more are the opening few 
paragraphs which report:

        "This problem has apparently been known about for a long time"
        
   " ...some reports suggest that adaptive systems may have been
     built..."

   "It seems to have been known for some years that the problem    
    can be avoided by ...."

Now there are a lot of "apparently" type statements in there, but 
has this work been done ?  If so why hasn't it been published to 
the VR research community, or already fed into the re-design of 
HMDs, or been used to provide usage standards and 
recommended immersion time limits ?  The focal depth/disparity 
problem still doesn't have a commercial solution, and there 
certainly hasn't been information forwarded by software 
designers about how their system "culls" half-image seperations 
greater than "X" to reduce an potential stress (the suggestion we 
made in CyberEdge Journal).

Mike suggests that this research has been done in military 
establishments and some commercial labs, but here is the issue: If 
this has been "known/built/avoided" how long should it be kept 
under-wraps.  Not all military research has to remain undisclosed.
Joe Psotka for instance has provided some interesting reports of 
his work, Richard Satava has presented his research and there 
have been some studies with night vision goggles & visual stress 
published (which we referenced).  

If this research does exist then surely pressure needs to be 
exerted by both those within and outside such establishments to 
"enlighten" the rest of us.  Similarly with commercial 
developments, we can recognise a corporations concern about 
protecting their idea (see for instance Bob Jacobson's recent 
discussion), but how long should a corporation sit on results when 
the issue is findings of, and solutions to, visual stress. 

So to re-state my questions: Is this work really sitting in military 
filing cabinets? If so why is it "secret"  and when is the VR 
research community going to benefit from it ?

John Wann
Edinburgh VR group