From: Ian Feldberg <ian.feldberg@jhuapl.edu>
Subject: Re: TECH: Moving Surface simulating free motion over ground
Date: Thu, 16 May 1996 15:22:50 -0400
Organization: JHU/APL


As far as I know, research in this area is hampered by the fact that
omni-directional treadmills are pretty hard (and expensive) to make.
One neat thing is the work that Hiroo Iwata (iwata@kz.tsukuba.ac.jp)
and Takashi Fujii are doing at the University of Tsukuba on a system
called the Virtual Perambulator.

The user wears low-friction sandals and operates within a circular
frame much like a hula-hoop. They presented the paper at VRAIS 96 and
I think they were at SIGGRAPH in 95.

- Ian
Ian Feldberg <ian.feldberg@jhuapl.edu>


[Iwata, H. and Fujii, T. (1996). Virtual Perambulator: A Novel Interface
Device for Locomotino in Virtual Environment. In Proceedings of Virtual
Reality Annual International Symposium, VRAIS '96, (pp. 60-65 ). Los
Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society Press.

Also see URL:

http://intron.kz.tsukuba.ac.jp/

Home page for Iwata's Lab at University of Tsukuba.

There is also a description of the Virtual Perambulator from SIGGRAPH '95 at:

http://www.flsig.org/S95/COMUNITY/PERAMBUL/PERAMBUL.HTL

-T.E.]