From: "Michael G. Koopman" Subject: Re: APPS: Virtual Interfaces for the Library There was an extended thread regarding VR in a library or database setting on 'alt.cyberspace' about a year ago. There were quite a few comments on the 'natural' activity of sorting through the stacks, like in a real world library. The focus was on "3D gopher-like" interface to internet 'ftp' site datafiles. Generally, most thought such a setting was overkill for the intent (grabbing a file). A few comments on alternative presentation techniques in a VR setting included dynamic definition of an information space (one referring to a 6D representation) and were presented as improvements on the real world static library stack space. Improvement in the activity over the real world setting is a worthy goal of an alternative VR representation. 'Natural' actions should certainly be a foundation for any such alternative. Best luck in your endeavour, Michael Koopman (mike) Associate Computer Systems Specialist Concurrent Technologies Corporation e-mail: koopman@ctc.com 1450 Scalp Avenue phone: +1-814-269-2637 Johnstown, PA 15904-3321 USA telefax: +1-814-269-2666 [Greg Newby, the moderator for VIRTU-L and member of the Moderating Group for this newsgroup as well, has just written a review article on VR...see my VRU which follows. Dr. Newby has also done some interesting virtual environments involving information retrieval. Newby, are you lurking out there? -T.E.]