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L.J. Stapleton
P.J. Costello
October 1997
SUMMARY
This report presents the results of the 1996-1997 survey on current work in virtual reality in the UK. The survey was conducted on behalf of the Advisory Goup on Computer Graphics (AGOCG) by the AGOCG VR Support Officer.
This report presents the results of a survey of VR activities in the UK commissioned by the Advisory Group on Computer Graphics (AGOCG) and carried out by the Advanced VR Research Centre (AVRRC) in the Department of Human Sciences at Loughborough University. It is a follow-up of two previous surveys commissioned by AGOCG and conducted by the Advanced Interfaces Group at the University of Manchester in 1994 and 1995 (Howard et al. 1994, 1995). These are available here:
The questionnaire developed to elicit responses was made available by post, by e-mail and on the AVRRC web site .
The aims of the survey were: * To identify groups conducting VR research in the UK * To determine what type of VR systems are being used * To determine the major research areas being investigated * To identify the important information sources for VR researchers * To determine how current researchers view the future of VR in this country
Omitted responses indicate that a respondent did not supply an answer to the question. To facilitate comparison with the previous surveys a number of key questions used in the former surveys were repeated.
Type Of Organisation 1994 1995 1997
No. % No. % No. %
University.......................... 30 69% 35 60% 25 81%
Vendor/manufacturer................. 6 14% 14 24% 3 10%
Company Research Group.............. 6 14% 4 7% 2 6%
Government Research Group........... 1 2% 2 3% 1 3%
Other............................... - - 2 3% - -
End User............................ - - 1 2% - -
Individual Researcher............... 1 2% - - - -
Note: In some cases all respondents did not answer all of the questions. In the following tables percentages have been calculated as proportions of the total number of responses to all questions. Where comparisons with the previous surveys have been made, the previous data have been transformed along the same lines.
Number of Group Members 1994 1995 1997
No. % No. % No. %
1-5 ................................ 38 73% 39 62% 9 31%
6-10 ............................... 12 23% 17 27% 13 48%
>= 11 .............................. 2 4% 7 11% 7 21%
11-15 .............................. - - 2 7%
>= 15 .............................. - - 4 14%
1994 1995 1997
The 1994 and 1995 surveys give number ranges of 1-5, 6-10 and greater than 10. For comparison, the 1997 groupings of 11-15 and greater than 16 have been combined in a greater than 11 category. The data suggest a continuing trend for increasing group size. The authors of the 1995 report caution that some group sizes may appear inflated due to the inclusion of students. This caution equally applies to the 1997 data. However, an increase in student proportions would imply a need in industry for graduates qualified in the sorts of skills that training in virtual reality applications would provide. The authors of this report recommend that future research should address this issue and determine the proportions of students and full-time workers in VR.
Backgrounds Of Group Members 1994 1995 1997
No. % No. % No. %
Computer Science .................. 41 30% 49 25% 23 23%
Engineering ....................... 34 25% 43 22% 21 21%
Psychology ........................ 11 8% 18 9% 8 8%
Human Factors ..................... 4 3% 9 5% 8 8%
Mathematics ....................... 6 4% 18 9% 11 11%
Physics ........................... 6 4% 10 5% 10 10%
Medicine .......................... 1 1% 1 1% 3 3%
Architecture ...................... 2 1% 2 1% 4 4%
Art and design .................... 9 7% 5 3% 4 4%
Other ............................. 23 17% 43 22% 10 10%
Each of the 1995 and 1994 entries for the category "Engineering" includes that year's entries in the "Electrical/Electronic Engineering" category.
The 1997 "Art and Design" category includes two respondents who gave their background as Art, and one as Design. The 1994 and 1995 entries for "Graphic Design/Fine Art" are given under this category. For 1997 single responses giving the following backgrounds were stated within the "Other" category:
Computer Aided Graphics Digital Media Furniture Design Geography Image Analysis Intelligent Systems Interior Design Parallel Processing Theater Design Vision Science
Additional categories stated in 1994 and 1995 and given under their respective "Other" category were as follows (Note: In some cases there was more than one respondent for each of these categories):
Acoustic/Audio Engineering Aerospace Animation Artificial Intelligence Chemistry Communication Studies Computer-Based Learning Control Engineering Military Geography/GIS History Image Science Linguistics Medical Physics Operational Research Philosophy Systems Design Sales/Marketing Simulation Sociology Theater
It may be possible to loosely include within the main categories some of the background areas under the "Other" category. For example, Artificial Intelligence might be classed under Computer Science. However, as the respondents distinguished these as independent background areas, they provide useful indicators of the diversity of expertise within the field of VR.
Duration Of Group Activity 1994 1995 1997
No. % No. % No. %
less than 1 year ................... 4 11% 5 8% 4 14%
1-3 years .......................... 24 65% 33 54% 10 36%
3-5 years .......................... 5 14% 13 21% 6 21%
Greater than 5 ..................... 4 11% 10 16% 8 29%
Respondents were asked to state their sources of funding under the following categories: Academic Funding Body (EPSRC, JISC etc.); Company; Government Agency; European Funding Body, and Other. As these categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and the 1994 and 1995 questionnaires report under different classifications, comparison with the previous surveys was not made. The 1997 responses are presented below.
Funding source Number Academic ..................... 23 Other ........................ 7 Company ...................... 7 European Funding Body ........ 4 Government Agency ............ 2
The "Other" category comprised:
* Industrial partners ........ 3 * Charities .................. 1 * Interval Research (USA) .... 1 * NHS ........................ 1 * Sales ...................... 1
This indicates that the principle source of funding is academic. The high proportion of questionnaires submitted by university research groups (25 of 31) may account for the high reportage of academic sources of funding. This is borne out through a case by case examination (See individual entries in Section 9). All of the university research groups report academic funding, with five groups also reporting funding from industrial partners or companies. It should be borne in mind, however, that the numbers of groups reporting a source of funding does not give any indication of the amount of the funding obtained from that source.
Platform Number PC ........................................... 22 Silicon Graphics ............................. 19 Other UNIX workstation (Sun, DEC etc.) ....... 9 Division ..................................... 6 Apple Mac .................................... 5 Other ........................................ 3
Within the "Other" category single responses given were:
* A proprietary system. * HP * Virtuality Elysium immersive systems
The leading platforms reported were PCs and Silicon Graphics. The 1994 and 1995 surveys similarly showed these to be the principle platforms used (1994: PC, 29; Silicon Graphics, 15; 1995: PC, 32; Silicon Graphics, 31). It should be borne in mind, however, that the numbers cited do not provide an indication of the numbers of individual platforms within individual institutions.
The most commonly reported tracking system was the Polhemus (13 respondents). Other tracking systems reported were: Ascension Technology Inc. (3 respondents), and one response each for: TCAS Dataware; Ultrasonic; Vision-based; MIT Electric Fish; 3D Scanners ModelMaker which uses a FARO arm; CrystalEyes; Infrared, and Virtual I/O.
The number of groups with immersive facilities continues to grow. Additional display types reported were:
* Prototype auto-stereoscopic display * Liquid Crystal Shutter (not glasses) * Scanning-slit parallactiscope * Sharp Autostereoscopic display * Static/mobile reality center
Display Type Number VDU/Desktop ................................ 22 Immersive HMD Stereo ....................... 15 Immersive HMD Mono ......................... 12 Large screen/projection systems ............ 10 Shutter Glasses ............................ 9
The table below lists respondents with mono or stereo immersive interface capabilities. Groups marked with an astrix indicate new entries since the 1995 survey.
Group Name Type * = New Cardiff Uni., Dept. of Psych. .......... University ...................... * Datapath Ltd. .......................... Vendor/Manufacturer ............ * DeMontfort Uni., IRG ................... University ...................... * Essex Uni. ............................ University ...................... - Heroit Watt Uni. ....................... University ...................... - Hull Uni. .............................. University ...................... * Leicester Uni., Psych. Dept. .......... University ...................... * Loughborough University ................ University ...................... - Manchester Uni. ........................ University ...................... - Nottingham Uni., CRG .................. University ...................... - Nottingham Uni., VIRART. .............. University ...................... * Reading Uni. ........................... University ...................... * Rutherford Appleton Labs .............. Government Research Gp. ......... - Sheffield Uni. ......................... University ...................... * Southampton Uni. ....................... University ...................... - Strathclyde Uni. ....................... University ...................... * Virtuality Ltd. ........................ Hard/Software Vendor ............ -
User Input Devices Number Hand/Arm Devices ..................................................... 12 Pointing Devices ..................................................... 15 Space Ball ............................................................ 3 SpaceMouse ............................................................ 3 3D mouse .............................................................. 2 Gestures .............................................................. 1 Joystick .............................................................. 1 MIT Electric Fish ..................................................... 1 SMI eye-tracker ....................................................... 1 Steering inputs ....................................................... 1 Voice recognition ..................................................... 1 Haptic Interfaces Kinesthetic Interface ................................................. 1 Tactile Interface ..................................................... 1 Motion Devices Passive Motion Interfaces ............................................. 2 Self-Motion Interfaces ............................................... 2 Motion platforms capable of horizontal and vertical motion and motion in the roll, pitch and yaw axes ................................ 1 AVRRC Vertical Motion base (Full body) ................................ 1 Optokinetic Drum ..................................................... 1 Self-Motion Interface ................................................. 1 Vision-based tracking ................................................. 1 Auditory Interfaces Creative labs ......................................................... 1 Diamond Sound ......................................................... 1 Fully equipped, digital sound laboratory .............................. 1 MIDI sound ............................................................ 1 Qsound Labs ........................................................... 1 Olfactory Interfaces BOC Olfactory Delivery System ......................................... 1
1994 1995 1997
Software Modeling Packages No. % No. % No. %
3D Studio ............................. 3 7% 6 8% 15 16%
AUTOCAD ............................... - - - - 7 8%
MultiGen .............................. 0 0% 2 3% 4 4%
Pro Engineer .......................... - - - - 3 3%
VR Authoring Software Packages
VRML .................................. 0 0% 5 7% 14 15%
Superscape ............................ 13 30% 17 23% 11 12%
Division DVS/DVISE .................... 3 7% 10 14% 10 11%
Open Inventor/OGL/Performer ........... 2 5% 7 10% 9 10%
In-house System ....................... - - - - 8 9%
Sense8 ................................ 7 16% 6 8% 7 8%
DIVE .................................. - - - - 4 4%
Note: As the 1994 and 1995 questionnaires did not differentiate between modeling and authoring packages responses for the 1997 survey have been pooled to facilitate comparison.
The percentages given above were calculated by summing the total number of citings of use of all of the packages (within a year) and calculating the number of citings of each individual package relative to this total. The total number of citings of each package was thus greater than the number of respondents as some respondents use more than one package. It should also be noted that no weighting for group size or impact on VR uptake and use was undertaken. As such the response of a group running many copies of a software package on numerous machines would carry equal weight to a group with more modest resources. Similarly different application domains are likely to dictate the level of sophistication of required packages. The relative cost or availability of different packages was also not taken into account. Caution is thus advised in interpreting these usage figures as value indicators of any of the software packages.
The sudden appearance of AUTOCAD is noteworthy. This probably reflects the increasing availability of conversion software that allows the use of a wider variety of traditional CAD packages for the development of real-time VR.
Other software modeling packages mentioned (once each) were:
* AC3D * ANSYS * AVS * Clayworks * Director * Manual construction using WTK nff file format * Max/ MicroStation * Medit * Medit, + various market specific CAD * Proprietary * Softimage * WorldUp modeller
Other VR Authoring Software Packages mentioned (once each) were:
* In-house Systems (MAVERIK, Deva) * RealiMation * Renderware * V-space * VEGA * Virtual Reality 1.5, Avril
Eight groups indicated they had no intentions of acquiring any new hardware or software over the next twelve months. Responses of groups planning to make new acquisitions tended to be generic rather than indicate specific items. The items and numbers of groups indicating intentions to acquire them were:
Software ........................ 9 Workstations .................... 6 PCs ............................. 5 HMDs ............................ 5 Graphics Accelerator Hardware ... 2
Individual responses identified:
* 100Mbit ethernet * 3D graphics cards * ABACUS - on-line VR lab * Additional projection interface * Gloves * HP Vectra, XW Graphics * Intel PC * Multi-pipeline version of WTK * OpenGL cards/WTK * SGI hardware/software * Shuttered glasses * Trackers * Various input devices * VR peripherals
Numbers of respondents citing the following areas of focus were:
Applications Development ........... 12 Human Factors/HCI .................. 10 Software Architectures ............. 3 Medical Applications ............... 4 Entertainment ...................... 1 VR Peripherals Development ......... 1
Individual responses cited under the "Other" category were:
* Software Development * Stereo display technology * Eye-tracking * Computer vision, image analysis and processing * Use of VR in improving spatial awareness in kids with disabilities * Use of VR to assess and improve cognition in clinical patients, * Research into VR techniques for large-scale applications * User Interfaces for telecoms network management systems * Collaborative information visualisation * `Inhabited' TV * Special needs and mainstream education * Rehabilitation * Developing input devices * Evaluation of all aspects of VR use. * Virtual Artists Studio * CSCW using VR * Display systems and real-time computing * Art/Design * Human Perception * Brain Injury * Child Development * Construction of models from computer vision data * VR hardware and software architectures and algorithms * Our main aim and the reason why we do not have high end VR equipment is because we are concentrating on VRML and getting it used in Art and Design colleges * Visualization
Numbers of respondents citing the following applications areas of involvement were:
Information Visualization.... 16 Education/Training .......... 14 CAD/CAM ..................... 10 Architecture ................ 9 Medical Simulation .......... 8 Construction ................ 5
Individual responses cited under the "Other" category were:
* Low level human factors research of a generic nature * We provide the tools for people in these industries to use VR and Vis Sim in real life applications and environments * 3D Television * Virtual heritage * Shared virtual environments * Assembly * Cable harness design * Mining Environmental * Tele-conferencing * Entertainment * Art and performance * Marketing, rehabilitation, research * Virtual Studio for the Design of Intelligent Systems * Art * Theater * Engineering design. * Image Generation (PC platforms) * VR as a creative, artistic medium * Information visualisation * Tele-operation * Rehabilitation Environments * Aviation applications. * Research into Motion Sickness in virtual reality. * All areas of art and design * Marketing Entertainment
Twenty respondents stated they collaborate with other groups.
Nine indicated they do not.
From individual responses it would appear that over half the collaboration partners are non-academic (The authors' are not sufficiently familiar with named partners to identify all of their backgrounds.). Details of collaboration partners are provided in the individual responses listed in Section 9.
Eleven respondents indicated they were working towards (or in some cases had achieved) the production of a working commercial VR product. Two indicated a working commercial VR product was a possibility. Seven had a demonstrable example of a product, and predicted time scales for marketable products becoming commercially available were between one and three years. Sixteen indicated they were not working towards a commercial product.
ACM CHI ACM CSCW ARS Electronica, BCS Displays Group BCS HCI Comdex Digital Media World E3 ECSCW Ergonomics Society Annual Conference Eurographics Eurographics UK Expert Systems FIVE IEE Design systems with users in mind IEE Developments in Tactile Displays (Dec. 1996) IEE Virtual Reality-user issues (1996) Imagina SIGGRAPH SPIE UIST UKVRSIG VR Universe VR World VRAIS VRST WWW6
ACM Computer Graphics ACM Transactions on Graphics ACM Transactions on HCI CACM CEJ Computer Graphics Forum Computers and Graphics Cyberedge Ergonomics Human Factors IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications, IEEE Computer IEEE Transactions on Visualisation and Computer Graphics IT of Experimental Psychology Presence Real Time Graphics Virtual Reality: RaD, VR News
AGCOG AGCOG-VR alt.3d alt.lang.vrml alt.uu.virtual-worlds.misc ATLAS BCS HCI SIG CNBR comp.graphics comp.graphics.research comp.graphics.visualization comp.robotics CSCW Distributed VR EPSRC EURO-VRML Homebrew-VR JTAP-VR LVRG Performer Reality Centre User Group (currently being formed) Sci-virtual sci.virtual-worlds sci.virtual-worlds.apps SGI insider sgi.* Superscape user group UK VR-SIG UKVRG VR Society VRML working groups VRML UI working group VRS VVECC WTK users group
Close collaboration with Suppliers and other VR centres Eurographics workshops http://quoll.maneng.nott.ac.uk/Research/virart/index.html http://www-lips.ece.utexas.edu/~cchuter/vr.html http://www.cms.dmu.ac.uk/~cph/vrhw.html http://www.crg.cs.nott.ac.uk/~dns/vr/ http://www.crg.cs.nott.ac.uk/~dns/vr/cve/ http://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/knowledge_base/onthenet.html http://www.imaginative.com/VResources/vr_hardw/ http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists-u-z/ukvrsig/ http://www.superscape.com/ http://www.virtuality.com/ http://www.vr.org.au/companies/hmd.html Personal contacts. Project collaborations. SIGGRAPH/EG hardware workshop vr_hardw.html Workshops WWW
Seventeen respondents predict their group size will expand within the next year. Increased funding (achieved or in prospect) and increase in interest in VR were the principle reasons given. Only one respondent predicted a decease in group size with ten predicting no change. Individual responses predicting an increase were:
* Expanded scope of our human factors research and further funding * We are getting bigger and busier * Increase number of research assistants * VR is a technology whose time has come * Because of the increasing interest in VEs * New projects planned * Demand is increasing dramatically for our content&bsp;driven solutions * A feasibility study should become a 3 yr. research program * Need to attract further funding for software evelopment * More interest in pioneering research * More Funding * More projects in the pipeline * New funding for projects * May increase if our funding bids are successful (See comments to "Predicted breadth of research over the next year" below.)
Twenty respondents predicted an increase in the breadth of their research over the next year. Seven predicted no change and one a decrease. Reasons cited for the prediction of an increase in breadth of research were:
* Addition of other, major research project looking at human factors aspects of VEs * We are getting bigger and busier * The applications of VR technology are becoming more apparent * Increasing emphasis on non-graphical functionality in VEs. * Increased funding * More research staff will hopefully be available. * Greater uptake of VR as a communications aid within the company * Demands are diversifying although the technology is the same * Currently actively developing the area of `Inhabited TV' - large scale consumer oriented multi-user VR. * We are approached by a variety of partners with interest in developing VR applications. These applications are varied and also lead to further research interests. * Appears to be some interest from commercial companies * More people and improved funding * More interest in pioneering research * Exploration of alternative 3D interfaces, representational techniques and interaction paradigms * Loads of medical application areas waiting for investigation * New funding and collaborations. * We are a fairly new project and the breadth of the term `art and design' means that we must necessarily have broad interests * Visualisation is a priority area for funding in construction
Two distinct themes emerge from the reasons given for predicted increases in group size and breadth of research. A number of respondents attribute their predicted expansion to increased funding. Given that reported sources of funding were predominantly academic this would reflect a recognition among funding bodies of the potential of VR and the need to foster its development. The second theme to emerge is an emphasis on the application of VR, e.g. as a communications aid, in medicine, and suggested through commercial interest.
Individual descriptions of perceived benefits of VR were:
* Ability to use `natural skills' when interacting with computer. * Increased bandwidth of interaction. * Ability to evaluate simulated environments/products without creating physical mock-ups. * Numerous and application specific but too complex to be answered by a couple of sentences * Real time visualisation of a project or idea without going to great expense in physically modeling an environment. Also VR is not just headsets and gloves. There is a growing demand and therefore supply of desktop VR to bring the idea to a multitude more people than before * More natural human-computer interaction, fundamentally. * Early design validation and planning * Immersive; Flexibility; Interactibity; Improved sense of Presence; Quantifiable increase in user performance * In building design and construction the main benefit of VR is the modeling of design and construction which enables an integrated assessment of designs covering all criteria in all stages of the process. * Increased and improved human-computer interaction; Better visualization of information; More rapid prototyping; Improved simulation. * Engaging, highly interactive user interface combined visualisation of physical and abstract information * Empowerment. Understanding. Time to market. Achieving better designs + solutions. Reduce costs. Makes the technology transparent to the user + designer compared to CAD systems. Ability to graphically analyse complex data * Integrating metaphor * Good perceptual match * Exploit natural human spatial skills * Situate action and interaction * Numerous, depending upon application. In general terms VR is useful because it provides 3d interactive visualisation via interfaces that are accessible to a wide range of users (including those with special needs). It provides huge advantage for training and education because it facilitates learning by doing. * Presents scientific information in a way that a non-scientific audience can understand * In the theater, it might enable various visualisations to be explored at an early stage, and be rejected if inappropriate. It might provide a practical link between conceptual modeling and realisation. * Enhanced medium combining 3D, sound, interaction * Ability to generate perceptual stimuli that meet chosen criteria for the specification of information systems, rehabilitation environments or appraisal systems. This means that participants ranging from highly skilled operators, to brain injured patients, can be guided towards attending to specific cues and information sources that should transfer to the natural environment. * Intuitive, engaging and economical * Making it possible to implement realistic simulators at low cost, for training and development; Natural interfaces for remote operation in hostile environments. * For art and design students, staff, VRML has the potential to be a useful visualisation tool. * It is the future of computing * Better communication of information * Better analysis of information * Visual simulation * Interaction
Several themes emerge from the above submissions:
Many respondents draw attention to the facilitation by VR technology of naturalistic human interaction. This emphasizes the "human" element of human-computer interaction with VR being seen as the new human-computer interface. Emphasis is placed on perception and visualization, and on exploiting human spatial skills. This explicit recognition that VR facilitates "intuitive" modes of human behaviour/interaction is tempered by the realisation that human factors plays an important role in designing effective virtual environments. VRs are not inherently intuitive, rather, they require appropriate design to make them intuitive.
Developers identify a range of potential end-users for virtual environments. These range from specialist to naive users and can be application specific. Examples were provided of designing environments for people with special needs, developing visualisation aids for experts of various disciplines, representing complex scientific information to non-scientists, simulating hazardous environments , etc. Reduced cost of implementation platforms was recognised as facilitating this accessibility.
Rapid prototyping and simulations' development that avoid the expense of producing physical models were seen by many as a significant advantage. This cost saving was further emphasized for aiding the iterative design cycle and for an integrated assessment of complex designs. Cost benefit of reduced time to market was also recognized.
Sixteen respondents predicted public interest in VR to increase over the next year. Eight considered it would remain unchanged, while three considered it would decrease.
Reasons for anticipating an increase in interest were:
* Media interest and pilot applications * VR will move more to the desktop environment making it more accessible * VRML is becoming more prevalent, accelerated 3D graphics cards for PCs are now very cheap. * It's the Internet thing * Improved graphical performance on PCs and standards such as VRML * More people are discovering the benefits of VR and the cost of the systems is decreasing making it more affordable to smaller companies. * Better games/entertainment systems, wide use in corporate publicity * It is more accessible, affordable and their competitors are using it * Continued hype and unrealistic public perceptions; effective deployment of VRML2 and multi-user online systems * Risk reducing * Increase if and only if research can show the practical benefits of such technology - high end requirements are very expensive at the moment * Increasing development of devices for virtual reality such as DGTV. * Increasing publication of VR applications. * Increase in cheap PC based systems. * Cheaper, better, more accessible * Following increasing power of PCs with lower cost, there are more and more science and engineering applications available
A trend towards anticipating reductions in cost, increase in quality, diversity, and accessibility, of platforms and applications seems a common theme.
Reasons for predicting a decrease were:
* VR as a buzz word is dated, interactive 3D graphics/gaming/3d net will take over * The technology is, in essence, unremarkable and the media\public have been saturated with the front-end gloss of computer graphics. * Novelty value gone
These may be supplemented with the caution against encouraging unrealistic public perceptions expressed by one of the respondents to the previous question.
Respondents were requested to list their publications in the field of VR. Responses varied with some respondents supplying quite long lists. The authors decided inclusion in this survey would result in an unduely long section and opted to make the full lists available at UK VR Survey References
The apparent continuing trend for increasing group size and breadth of research is encouraging. This increase may reflect increased numbers of students (many responses were from academia), but that in itself may indirectly reflect industry's need for graduates.
The wide diversity of the backgrounds and expertise of VR practitioners reflects the varied potential for applications of VR technologies. The stated range of collaboration parallels this, as do the application areas identified by respondents. Collaboration with industry by university research groups should be monitored and supported.
The high proportion of academic funding may reflect an awareness among funding authorities of the potential of VR technologies. However the amount of funding was not ascertained. A more indicative measure might be a survey of funding bodies to determine the relative proportions of funding directed towards VR and other technological research.
Indications of hardware and software usage were obtained by asking respondents to list the items that their group use. Unfortunately, this indicator does not provide a measure of the perceived usefulness of these items. The use of an item by many groups might reflect its relative ease of use, compatibility with other equipment/software, etc., or, it might reflect the relative cost and availability of the item. An individual, case-by-case, assessment is planned by AGOCG, commencing in early 1998.
Practitioners recognize the advantage of the "intuitive" quality of human interaction with VR. This realisation must be tempered by awareness of the design requirements to make virtual environments intuitive.
Many respondents recognized that cost reduction represented a major advantage of VR. This would be reflected in cheaper prototyping, time-to-market, training, increased accessibility, etc. Public interest in VR was predicted to grow, but over promoting VR through unrealistic "hype" was recognized as undesirable.
Howard, T.L.J, Hubbold, R.J., Murta, A.D., and West, A.J., Survey of virtual reality activity in the united kingdom. Technical Retort 27, Advisory Group on Computer graphics, January 1994
Howard, T.L.J, Hubbold, R.J., Murta, A.D., and West, A.J., Survey of virtual reality activity in the united kingdom. Technical Report 27, Advisory Group on Computer graphics, February 1996
The survey questionnaire and instructions to respondents are available on-line here.
For further information please contact Lenny Stapleton at:
AVRRC Department of Human Sciences Loughborough University Loughborough Leicester LE11 3TUE-mail :
l.j.stapleton@lboro.ac.ukPage last updated by L.J. Stapleton 19th February 1998
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