From: Robin Hollands <R.Hollands@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: DESIGN: Is there really such a thing as text-based VR?
Date: 5 Mar 1996 16:17:54 GMT
Message-ID: <4hhpfi$kjf@bignews.shef.ac.uk>
Organization: Automatic Control & Systems Engineering, University of Sheffield 


From: Robin Hollands <R.Hollands@sheffield.ac.uk>

>	It was a cold night, the wind was blowing, and there was a
>hint of frost in the air.
>
>	There, that is a piece of a virtual reality...

Er, no - that was a line of narrative. Incidentally it also goes to
reinforce my point about subjectivity. How cold was the night? Was it
cold for an Eskimo, or only cold for Idaho?

>	Virtual Reality consists of the use of information [in a
>computer] to communicate a reality that is different from our
>"mundane" reality.
>

Says who? And why does it need a computer? The early flight simulators
allowed the pilots to explore a synthesised environment (physical
model) using an essentially electromechanical device. And why does the
virtual reality have to be different from our own reality? A fire
training simulator would be as close to real reality as possible, for
example, but could still be VR.


>	MUDs, Adventure and text based adventure type games are just
>as immersive as a graphical VR, but they require more imagination and
>raw data, unless the viewer and creater have a very specialized common
>symbol set. A surgeon can describe an operation in fewer words to
>another sugeon than to a layperson. But if you don't think that MUDs,
>for example, are not VR, go ask someone who has just spent their last
>20 hours on one....they may not be a Graphical VR, but they *are* VR
>none the less.

Point 1, I didn't restrict my original argument to graphical VR, but
to all sensory synthesising interfaces - graphical, audio, tactile,
olfactory etc. Point 2, the argument was not one of immersion. A
cinema viewer could get very immersed in a movie, but the movie isn't
VR because it is purely a passive experience. The degree with which
someone can get immersed in a story regardless of how restrictive the
interface is, is a tribute to both the power of the imagination of the
user and the skill of the story teller. Incidentally, if you asked
most of the general public what VR was after the release of Lawnmower
Man, you'd have probably got a much more ambitious reply that what is
generally regarded as VR these days! Stick Joe Public in a half decent
HMD system with stereo audio, and then let him loose on a MUD and ask
him which is the most realistic (not engaging, interesting etc. - just
realistic) and I don't think the reply would be much of a suprise.

Cheers,

Robin