From: ohl@world.std.com (Oren H Levine)
Subject: Re: TECH: Driving Simulators - Curved Paths
Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 13:04:00 GMT
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA



Hendrik-Jan van Veen (veen@newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de) wrote:
: Did anyone ever try one of these alternative ways of simulating
: changing direction of movement or did anyone ever think about this in
: more detail?

One way of solving this problem is to tie the viewing direction of 
the simulator to the viewing direction of the user's head, and not the
direction of the vehicle. If the display device is an HMD or other
head tracked display, this is easy to implement. The viewing direction
of the simulator in world coordinates is the sum of the user's view
direction relative to the vehicle and the vehicle direction relative to
the world. The user can look around as he or she wants - this may also
make for a more realistic simulation of actual driving.

For other simulators, you'll have to find a way to track the direction
in which the user is looking - perhaps using eye movement/eye position
detection to avoid encumbering the user, or some sort of head tracking
device attached to the user.

-Oren Levine (ohl@world.std.com)
-------------------------------------------------
Oren Levine              |/\| Spacetec  IMC  Corp
oren@spacetec.com        |\/| 100 Foot of John St
                         |/\| Lowell   MA   01852
Senior Software Engineer |\/| 508 970 0330   x165