1. Virtual Reality Augmented Realities Mixed Realities
Winter 03/102
Week 8
Dept. Design|Media Arts

2. CHAR DAVIES Osmose Computers, sound synthesizers and processors, stereoscopic head-mounted display with 3-D localized sound, interface vest, motion-capture devices, video projector, silhouette screen Dimensions variable

3. Early VR
Bell Helicopter Company used displays connected to a camera for flight simulation
The system proved to give a satisfactory sense of realitiy to the user
Similar systems were used for air pilot training until early 80s
Ivan Sutherland took the idea and built the ”ultimate Display”, the first Head-Mounted Display (HMD) in 1966 (the image to the right: circa 1967)
Reference can be found at:

4. Evans &Sutherland
Founded in 1973 by two professors David Evans and Ivan Sutherland (see
Specialized in graphic engines for real time interactive image generation
Construction of a simulator capable of producing 20 images/second
Resulted in the first flight simulator for the US Army
Development of a VR helmet in the 70’s and 80’s by the US Army (secret project)
Provided system for flight simulators for commercial aircraft all over the world
Fastest real time graphics engine
As the cold war ends, became active in entertainment business

5. SENSORAMA by Morton Heilig (1960) Not interactive, but an immersive environment

7. Immersive environment: panorama, peepshow and stereoscope

8. Illusion of “being there”

9. Peepshow box and perspective prints

11. All sorts of stereoscopes….

13. 3D cinema

14. Wider screen

16. The Cinerama Dome with its 316 hexagons and pentagons was built in sixteen weeks in 1963 and opened with Stanley Kramer's "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."

17. Real time graphics (Dan Sandin’s Image Processor and other analog image synthesizers)

19. “Put-that-there” Voice and gesture at the graphics interface, Negroponte et al, MIT, 1980

20. “Artificial Reality” Engineer/Artist Myron Krueger, 1983 Videoplace 1985

21. Modern Notion of Virtual Reality Systems NASA AMES
Around 1985, using DEC PDP and E&S
3-D head position measurement by Polhemus digitizer
Display as wireframe
Data glove added by Scott Fisher
First virtual sound system in 1988 by Scott Fisher and E. Wenzel
Created the first system capable of synthesizing four virtual 3-D sound sources
The sound sources were localized even if the head moves

22. Super Cockpit Tom Furness, Univ. of Washington

23. UNC Chapel Hill 1980s - CG, computer science, parallel processing, force feedback, tactile display, new ideas and concepts….. (photo: concept model for X-ray viewing, 1990)

24. Late 1980s to Beginning of 1990s: VR as a phenomenon Photo: NASA AMES 1990 Scott Fisher et al.

25. VR Comes to the Public’s Attention (Article on Dataglove, 1987)

26. Commercially available equipments VPL Dataglove, Datasuit

27. Jaron Lanier, CEO of VPL Stands for "Visual Programming Language”, founded in 1984

28. FakeSpace Boom Display - early 1990s

29. Menagerie Scott Fisher et al.

31. Dan Sandin Developed CAVE

32. CAVE: The concept developed from Art and Technology collaboration
Developed around 1992 at the University of Illinois’ Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at Urbana Champaign, USA
First version was based on a network of SGI Reality Engine machines to render images in real-time display
The system is composed of three projection walls and one floor
Use two 3-D magnetic trackers, Flock of Birds by Ascension Technology, to locate the head and the hand

34. Industrial Applications of VR
Molecular modeling
Medical
Architecture : Walk through
Interior design: Kitchen
Industrial design: Car
Psychology
Training

35. Communication environment Education

39. The IMMERSADESK and other wide-screen formats
IMMERSADESK: Developed at the EVL around 1995
Is equivalent to a 3-D drafting table
Uses the same interface as the CAVE : The wand tracks the hand and a head tracker
Immersive environment with wide screens, semi-spherical screens emerge

40. Bush Soul by Rebecca Allen

41. VR for everyone: on PC and on the Web
Introduction of VRML 1.0 in 1996
Introduction of Performer library by SGI around 1996
QTVR (Apple, 1992)
Commercial version of the CAVE available in 1998 produced by Pyramid Systems
Introduction of many high-speed graphic cards for PCs around 1998
Introduction of VRML 2.0 in 1998
PC CAVE

44. Artistic applications of VR Concept, context and new interface ideas
Legible City: Jeffery Shaw
Home of the Brain: Monika Fleischmann, Art+Com
Virtual tram ride in Karlsruhe: Michael Naimark
Handsight: Agnes Hegedus
Menagerie: Scott Fisher, Susan Amkraut,
Interactive Plant Growing, A-Volve: Christa Sommerer, Laurent Mingonneau
Living by Numbers: Luc Courschene
Osmose, Ephemere: Char Davies
World Skin: Maurice Benayoun

45. VR interfaces (image below: Virtual YABUSAME, shooting arrows on horseback)
Both input and output are needed in real time
Vision
Sound
Detection: Sensors, video cameras, microphones, etc.
Body tracking
Eye tracking
Pressures and force feedback (from joystick to haptic display)
…. What else?

46. Force Feedback Physical interaction within a virtual environment (image below: Virtual Chambara, Univ. Tokyo)

47. “As Much As You Love Me” (An artwork with force feedback using magnetic field)

48. Augmented Realities and Mixed Realities

49. Augmented Realities
Enhance the real environment by adding virtual visual/audible/tactile information
Training in engineering, medical help
Visualization of data
Enhance the virtual environment by bringing in real objects, vision, sound, or other information from the real world
Add a sense of reality to virtual reality
Eliminate the sense of loss in the virtual world
Training, simuation

50. Augmented Realities and Augmented Virtualities: Why not Mixed Realities? (image: from MR Lab, Japan)

51. Mixed Realities (image: Music on the Table, by Toshio Iwai)
The hot field in VR studies
More “natural”
Tactile sensation is easier to achieve
Wider possibilities
Easier to use
Needs to be calibrated precisely, to much the real world and the virtual
Became an active field in Japan: How is it related to the “sense of reality” in each culture?