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AGOCG VR Support Officer's Update

A number of projects were outlined in the previous article to this newsletter posted by the VR Support Officer, Pat Costello, following the establishment of the post at Loughborough University. This bulletin provides an update of the activities that have been carried out so far and those that will be carried out in the immediate future.

Update on Present Projects

Web Site

New additions to the Web site include a VR links page with hyperlinks to a number of useful sites and a draft version of the 3D Model Databases report

Useful VR links include pointers to current JISC funded VR projects within the UK, the sites of a number of major VR manufacturers and developers and also links to VR journals that are available on-line.

The Support Officer will continue to update the site on a regular basis and the URL is available in the further information section of this article.

AGOCG-VR Mailing List

Response to the formation of the mailing list has been very good. At the time of writing the list has 43 subscribed members, predominantly members of the UK academic community and UK VR industry.

The list has already proved to be a good source of information for inclusion on the Web site and the future strategy is to attempt to promote greater discussion on the major VR issues affecting the Higher Education community.

Update of VR Survey

In 1994, the Advanced Interfaces Group (AIG) at the University of Manchester prepared a report called a 'Survey of Virtual Reality Activity in the United Kingdom' for AGOCG. Their brief was to determine the state of the art of VR in the UK. A copy of the original report can be viewed on-line at the AGOCG site at:

http://www.agocg.ac.uk:8080/agocg/New/TechReports/VRinUK/report.html

It has been determined that it would now be beneficial to update this survey. The update will serve to indicate how the use of VR techniques has progressed since 1994, the current state of VR research in the UK and how current users see future development in educational terms. A suitable questionnaire is currently being developed with the help of the original survey group and will soon be distributed by various methods.

VRET '97

As mentioned in the previous article, a conference has now been organised in collaboration with Mike Bevan, publisher/editor of VR News.

The conference and trade show known as 'Virtual Reality in Education and Training' will be held at the Loughborough campus on 23 - 25 June 1997. The event will essentially take the form of three one-day conferences, covering VR in Secondary Education, VR in Higher Education and VR in Commercial and Industrial Training. The VR in Higher Education stream will be sponsored by AGOCG and it is hoped that a program will have been produced by early March.

JTAP VR Meeting

A JTAP VR Focused Club meeting was held at Holly Royde in Manchester on 10 February 1997. The meeting consisted of a number of brief presentations by academic research groups, including representatives from Loughborough, currently carrying out VR related studies funded by JTAP. As a follow up to this meeting, it is envisaged that hyperlinks to a number of these groups can be established on the VR links page of the Support Officers Web site.

Further Information

If you have any comments or require further information contact:

Pat Costello
AGOCG VR Support Officer
Advanced VR Research Centre
Dept of Human Sciences
Loughborough University of Technology
Loughborough
Leic LE11 3TU

Tel: +44 1509 223037 x4266
Fax: +44 1509 223940
p.j.costello@lboro.ac.uk
http://sgi-6.lut.ac.uk/~vrsupp/vrsupp.html
Mailing list homepage: http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/agocgvr/welcome.html