CONF REPORT: VR User Show
R Hollands
posted to our own group (hence the informality)...
UK VR-SIG was at the VR User Show. The show was a great success for UK VR-SIG
as we managed to attract about another 20 members (we got about 3
from the Meckler show). Many thanks to Brian, Rob, Matteo, Anthony,
Nick and the VIRART team for helping out on the stand. Thanks also to
Mike Bevan for letting us on the stand in the first place.
Elsewhere in the show, Virtuality were showing off their new
Series2000 stand up arcade unit with the much improved Visette2. They
have now linked up with IBM to market the same technology through
desktop PC systems with their Project Elysium systems. The price tag
is high (from 6,600 to 47,000) but its a very nice piece of design,
especially the portable deskstation which contains space for
keyboard, tracker, joystick, mouse, HMD and LCD screen.
InfoDisp were pushing their new CamNet system, an expert-shoulder-
system in which the user wears a headmount containg earphone,
microphone, Private Eye monoscopic HMD and miniature video camera.
The expert back at the base can see everything the user can over the
link, and can send images, text and other information from his
console to the user's hmd, in addition to communicating over the
voice line. I was also told that the system has saved one life
already, when a medical emergency developed near one of the test
sites.
Salt, the VR consultancy formed by Bryan Salt, one of the developers
of Superscape, was exhibiting its new VR exercise system. Up to 6
stair climbing machines can be networked together, and exercisers can
race each other around a virtual environment, seen on a small display
on the machine. As the virtual going gets tougher, e.g. running
uphill, the machines are automatically adjusted by the software to
make running more difficult. The graphics on Salt's flyer look far
too impressive for Superscape, but I'm assured that all have been
created in VRT. "We're very good" said Bryan (modest too, eh!).
Superscape itself choose a different marketing approach this year.
Instead of the usual collection of PCs running applications on their
stand, they ran a repeating seminar on virtual world design. Nice
idea, and quite effective, but it might have been nice if you could
talk to other exhibitors without being deafened by their PA!
Division were also there, of course, and were now marketing a new
platform for their stuff on Hewlett Packard graphics workstations.
Also on display was their new HMD, the dVisor, which has a huge FOV
of 104 degrees as well as being one of the first to use the new
MicroSharp depixallating filter.
Virtual Presence were popular as ever, replacing their well-worn Tron
demo for a new haunted house texture mapped thingy developed for
Siggraph. As usual Denise Haskew was around to answer queries and
John Hough was hovering around in the background waiting for the
serious punters. Also running was a very nice Mars Terrain demo using
a CyberEye HMD - nice detail, tiny field of view. John also told me
that World Toolkit for Windows is being updated to support the new,
cheap HMDs coming from Cybermaxx and Forte. BTW, thanks to Denise for
the Velco mounts, without which all the UK VR-SIG posters would have
been stuck up with bubblegum.
Tucked away down in the corner with the VR-SIG stand was the
University of Surrey/DRA team with their mobile telepresence system.
A mobile robot has a pair of servo-mounted miniature video cameras
connected to an HMD. As the user looks around, the HMD is tracked and
the cameras move accordingly. The system worked so well that it was
in fact quite boring, being akin to sitting in a chair looking
around! The only quibble I had was that when I wanted to let the
robot go for a trundle, I found out that they only had a 3 foot
umbilical lead - not much good for a mobile robot :-)
ColtVR were doing their usual thing with people and fluid flow. It
was not until I got the press pack home that I found out that they
are marketing a new rendering package that will render photorealistic
scenes on a PC in seconds, in addition to introducing a new 3D
ultrasonic mouse, called ALPS, specifically designed for Macs.
GMS have been continually developing the JACK full body system, and
showed me the new library of movements created for the virtual
infantry, as well as group modelling, and more realistic hands.
Other companies present were Liquid Image, Transformation Software,
Argus Productions, and the guys other than DataPlan who did the
British Gas kitchens.
The accompanying medical and commercial VR conferences went well,
although I managed to miss them. Mike Bevan, the conference
organiser, tells me that an edited video of the conference(s) should
be available soon.
Robin
(UK VR-SIG Chairman)
Robin*****************************************************************
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