VRML On-line Virtual Reality                 

The definition of Virtual Reality might be when someone wears a helmet with the image of the computer graphic world right up against his eyes.  He might have to wear a glove to follow the motions of his hands and fingers to interact with the world.  We have even seen people on treadmills and gyroscopes to move around in virtual worlds.  I have been fortunate enough to experience one of these virtual experiences at Siggraph in 1994.  It was called a 'cave' run on Silicon Graphic Challenge super-computers.  It was a weather simulator and I was able to stand above the clouds or duck down under them.

Have you ever caught an insect and put it in a jar?  Then you get this great idea to put a stick and leaf in there to "simulate" his natural environment.  I don't think the bug is saying "hey this is just like home".  For me, helmets, gloves, and gyroscopes are sticks and leaves in a jar.  The technology is cool but I believe in immersion.  That is, creating realistic worlds that you can interface with just a naturally as looking right or left or reaching out to touch something.

Having worked in computer games for some time now, it has been exciting to see how great graphics have come along.  There are a lot of really great games that allow the player to become immersed in the action but many people still stare at them and are not sure what to do or how to interact with everything.  Heck, half the time most of us in development don't know yet either so we rely on cheat keys and the good old god mode.

One of the things I hope to experiment with on the VRML page is Graphic User Interfaces (GUIs) that allow users to interact with the worlds and objects in an intuitive nature.

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