From: vanevery@blarg.net (Brandon J. Van Every)
Subject: Re: DESIGN: 3D computing vs. virtual reality:  what's the difference?
Date: 19 Dec 1995 19:25:55 -0800
Message-ID: <4b7vo3$lph@animal.blarg.net>
Organization: I need to put my ORGANIZATION here.


From: vanevery@blarg.net (Brandon J. Van Every)

Robert-Jan Elias (Elias@fel.tno.nl) wrote:
: VR provides means for a direct, natural interaction, enabling the
: observer to focus entirely on the observed environment instead of
: worrying about the interface.

Hmm.  What if there's nothing "natural" about the environment being
observed?  Evolutionarily speaking, human beings aren't familiar with
how to walk around inside of organic molecules and splice them.  It
would seem that VR exists to facilitate wholly "unnatural" tasks, and
that we are merely trying to make the task "_more_ natural" than it
otherwise would be.  After all, if it were easy to do, why would we
bother using such a heavy-duty technology to assist us?

VR is often portrayed as being intrinsically "easy" to use, and it
isn't.  It's as easy or hard as the application you put it to.  For a
lot of tasks, you _will_ have to train for "an interface," just like
many other tasks in regular 3d life.

Cheers,
Brandon