From: vanevery@blarg.net (Brandon J. Van Every) Subject: Re: DESIGN: Is there really such a thing as text-based VR? Date: 27 Mar 1996 01:27:47 GMT Message-ID: <4ja5ij$315@guysmiley.blarg.net> Organization: Blarg! Online Services 206/441-9109 From: vanevery@blarg.net (Brandon J. Van Every) Marc Bernatchez (mbernat@gel.ulaval.ca) wrote: : Robin wrote: : >Many of the disagreements between Marc and myself are down to his : >imaginitive use of numbers. For a start: : > : >>: 1- 3D imagery -> 0% in text based MUDs : >>: 2- Immersion -> 0% or very poor : >>: 3- Interaction (real-time response) -> 70% : >> : >>: average score: 23% : > : >The numbers sound very persuading (you can't argue with maths after : >all) but where do you get these figures from Marc? : It's my fault, I should have precised that these numbers : were to be taken in a very large sense. I.e. if I say 70% by example, : it's not a straight 70%. It's more like somewhere around that amount, : from 50% to 100% at the limit. I understand what you're _trying_ to do in terms of "numerical sense." You're trying to establish a common ground of discussion. But if your numbers are so wildly inaccurate, then I don't see that you've added any precision to the discussion. Why not just admit that the domain being argued is qualitative, and deal with it in terms of qualitative discussion? When I first read your numbers, I took them to be a mere paraphrase of what you had already said qualitatively in full English sentences. : The numbers are just my numeric : representation of subjective impressions. To get better figures, it : would be necessary to get a large sample of people putting their : numbers on each item above. Then it would be much tighter. What you have just described is a Democracy, not analytical insight. I guess I'm just soap-boxing from my anthropology background. We can't/don't need to put numbers on everything. There's nothing wrong with qualitative analysis - it is often the right tool for the job. I think it's definitely the right tool for answering "is text-based VR really VR." Measurements have their place, as long as you actually have something to measure. If you can't, then ethnographies are a better tool. : Robin, I'm not convinced about the last statement. You can't argue : that the better the FOV, the better the immersion feeling you will : get... And the presence feeling too will be enhanced. If you could get : a high resolution 180 degrees FOV HMD, I'm sure you would jump on it : and throw the lower FOV HMD away. True? So your feelings tells you to : go for the better hardware device. It's not about content. Well it's : content because the image quality is a part of this content. Better : resolution and FOV leads to better content (more info, more : interesting, etc.). And yet just because your images have a higher frequency resolution, doesn't make them have better "content." Content is a problem for artists. We might as well admit that "better resolution and FOV" leads to better resolution and FOV, and not anything else in particular. i.e. we talk about FOV because it's a quantifiable and tractable problem, not because it implies any qualitative result. That's really been the whole nature of this "textual VR" discussion. On the one hand: people who only wish to discuss the quantitative. On the other, people who wish to discuss te qualitative. Why mix and match? Cheers, -- Brandon J. Van Every | Check out Free3d, my 100% efficient, 100% portable | 3d lib, at . 3d Computer Graphics | C++ UNIX X11 Motif | E-mail: vanevery@blarg.net