vr - the historical context - moves institutezyda/courses/1historyofvr.pdf · vr - the historical...

VR - The Historical Context

Rudy Darken & Michael Zyda

Naval Postgraduate School

{ Darken, Zyda }@cs.nps.navy.mil

OverviewSensorama

Ivan Sutherland

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

MIT

NASA Ames Research Center

VPL

Others...

Stereo Imagery

SensoramaMorton L. Heilig

• An early attempt to builda full sensoryexperience

Ivan SutherlandThe First Head-MountedDisplay

• Developed at Harvard in the1960’s

• Consisted of 2 miniature CRT’smounted at the side of theuser’s head plus an opticssystem.

Ivan Sutherland• Sutherland also

developed early headtracking technology -one system based onultrasound and anotherbased on a mechanicallinkage attached to theuser’s head.

MIT “Put That There” (1983)A voice recognition,and hand gesture-based (withPolhemus) largescreen commandroom.

• ACM SIGGRAPH VideoReview Vol. 13, Entry 4.

MIT “The Aspen Movie Map”(1983)

A videodisk of the town of Aspen,Colorado was constructed

The videodisk allowed the user to walkaround the town and make decisions atintersections as to which way to go. Somebuildings could be entered.

University of North Carolina atChapel Hill

Walkthrough

Pixelplanes/PixelFlow

Force Feedback,Nanomanipulator

Optical ceiling tracker

UNC Walkthrough- Fred Brooks

UNC’s usage of the term virtualworld dates from about 1986 andthe 1986 Workshop onInteractive 3D Graphics put onby UNC.

• One of the papers that Brookspresented at that conference is one ontheir first cut at a walkthrough system.

UNC Walkthrough- Fred Brooks• The goal of that work was to build an architectural

model of their new building in sufficient detail that themodel could be used for planning/redesignpurposes.

• The 3D model constructed was then used as atestbed for the study of how one could program analgorithm in software that could minimize thepolygon flow through the slow graphics pipeline thenavailable to them.

UNC Walkthrough- Fred Brooks• The early system ran about 1 frame per second but

the paper Brooks generated for that symposiumraised a lot of interesting questions and pointed anumber of people in the right direction for the VWwork to come.

UNC Hardware EffortsPixelPlanes-4 (1989)

• 25,000 polys/second

PixelPlanes-5 (1991)

• 1M polys/second

PixelFlow (1997)

• 100M polys/second

PixelFlow- Renderers & Compositors

PixelFlow Overview

PixelFlow Pics

UNC NanomanipulatorNanomanipulator

UNC Nanomanipulator

UNC Tracking ProjectOptical ceiling tracker

UNC Tracking Project

UNC Video Selections• ACM SIGGRAPH Video

Review 43, 1989, Entry 11:UNC Computer GraphicsSampler ’89 - Fuchs/UNC.

• ACM SIGGRAPH VideoReview 51, 1989, Entry 25:The Virtual Lobby - JohnRohlf/UNC. Note: Thisvideo is a repeat of thematerial in Video 43/Entry11 above.

• ACM SIGGRAPH VideoReview 62, 1990, Entry 19:Artificial Reality at UNCChapel Hill - WarrenRobinett/UNC.

• ACM SIGGRAPH VirtualReality Applications Gallery,Jury Reel ’91.

UNC Video Selections• ACM SIGGRAPH Video

Review 96, 1993, Entry 6:The Nanomanipulator.

• SIGGRAPH 97?

NASA Ames Research Center• Mike McGreevy and Scott Fisher

developed the first affordable VEsystem in the mid 1980’s.

• Their system consisted of a head-mounted display (their own designbut contracted out to Leep Optics)and a VPL DataGlove (theycontracted with VPL to build thisunder NASA’s specifications).

NASA’s VIEW Project

NASA’s Early HMD

NASA’s HMD

NASA’s BOOMMounted Display

NASA Telerobotics

NASA VIEW Project - SpatialSound - the Convolvotron• The purpose of the Convolvotron was to provide 3D

sound.

– Small microphones were mounted in the ears of adummy head.

– Sounds were played at various positions aroundthe head and the amplitudes and phasedifferences between the sounds arrivals at themicrophones were recorded.

NASA VIEW Project - SpatialSound - the Convolvotron• Those parameters were used in the construction of a

device, the Convolvotron, that could provide real-time,3D positioning for sound that was otherwise notpositioned.

– i.e. the sound would be modified for the stereochannels to simulate the phase and amplitudedifferences that would exist “were” the sound reallywhere the Convolvotron placed it.

• This work was done by Beth Wenzel of NASA and ScottFoster of Crystal River Engineering...

NASA VIEW Project - SpatialSound - the Convolvotron

Outputs Spatialized Sound to Stereo Headphones

Inputs Sound Location of sound Location of viewer Head orientation of viewer

Convolvotron

SoundSource

NASA Video Suggestions• ACM SIGGRAPH Video

Review 50, 1989, Entry 12:VIEW: NASA/AMES VirtualEnvironment Workstation -Scott Fisher/NASA.

• ACM SIGGRAPH VideoReview 55, 1990, Entry 3:VIEW: NASA/AMES VirtualEnvironment Workstation -Scott Fisher/NASA.

• ACM SIGGRAPH VideoReview 49, 1988/89,Entries for “Mars the Movie”and “Earth the Movie”.Where is “LA the Movie”(also good)?

NASA Video Suggestions• ACM SIGGRAPH ‘92

Course #9, “Implementationof Immersive VirtualEnvironments”. Good pieceof Hitchner “VirtualPlanetary ExplorationProject”.

• ACM SIGGRAPH ‘93,Course #43 “ImplementingVR”. Great NASA and UVAfootage. Show the completetape. Virtual windtunnelproject/Bryson.UNC/Robinette (greatpiece). Univ ofVirginia/Pausch BrownUniversity - 3D widgets.

USAF Wright PattersonArmstrong Lab

The “SuperCockpit”

Super Cockpit - $1M HMD

Super Cockpit Design

VPL ResearchVPL produced the first commercial VRhardware and system (RB2).

VPL developed the DataGlove andPowerGlove and eventually a tactilefeedback glove.

VPL ResearchThey commercialized the NASA HMDtechnology - based on LCD displays and aspecial optics system.

Produced software for the design ofvirtual environments.

Produced a commercial VR system thatcan support one or two users.

VPL’s Reality Built for Two(RB2)

A development platform for designing andimplementing real-time virtual realities.

• Development was rapid & interactive using a visualprogramming language.

– Behavior constraints and interactions were editedin real-time.


Changes made to the interactions in theworld were seen immediately.

• For example, attach gravity to an object and see itfall.


RB2 consisted of 3 software modules anda variety of hardware.

• The design & control workstation was a Mac IIrunning a solid modeling application called RB2Swivel and a data flow/real-time animation controlpackage called Body Electric.

VPL’s Body Electric

VPL Devices

DataGlove EyePhones

VPL Video Suggestions• ACM SIGGRAPH Video

Review 27, 1987, Entry 2:DataGlove - GeorgeZachary/VPL. Also Entry 6:The Alternate Reality Kit -Randy Smith/Xerox PARC.An excellent piece of howone can interactivelymanipulate a microworld’sforces.

• ACM SIGGRAPH VirtualReality Applications GalleryJury Reel ’91. The Boeingdemo is using the RB2system! The MatsushitaKitchen Design systemuses RB2.

Artificial Reality CorporationMyron Krueger, one of the early pioneersof VE technology.

Most of his work is video, rather thangeometric graphics.

He also focuses on systems that do notrequire the participant to wear anything.

Artificial Reality CorporationEarly work:

• GLOWFLOW

• METAPLAY

• PSYCHIC SPACE

• VIDEOPLACE

Videoplace

Mandela System

Myron Krueger & MandelaVideo Suggestions• ACM SIGGRAPH Video

Review 20, 1985, Entry 14:Videoplace Sampler -Krueger/ARC.

• ACM SIGGRAPH VirtualReality Applications GalleryJury Reel ’91. Krueger wasthere. He must have a demopiece. Yes, he does. Bring inthe TRG 91 tape on Mandelahere.

• ACM SIGGRAPH VideoReview 40, 1988, Entry 4:Videoplace ’88 - Krueger/ARC.This is the best Krueger piece.also on this tape: Entry 1: VeryNervous System, DavidRokeby -- a video system (3cameras) - generates soundfrom movement. Entry 3:Plasm: A Nano Sample,Myers, Broadwell, Manolis.

NPSNET-IVNPSNET-IVCapabilities

• Building walkthroughs.

• Articulated humans -mounting/dismountingcapability.

• Networking - play across themulticast backbone of Internet.

• Terrain database integration,terrain paging (70km x 70km).

• Any vehicle capability - air,ground, articulated human.

• Testbed for VE NSA issues.

• Interoperability - SIMNET/DIS

– Constructive modelintegration - Janus WorldModeler

– ModSAF

NPSNET-IV

NPSNET-IV

NPSNET-IV

NPSNET-IV Video Selections• SIGGRAPH 97 on Omni-Directional Treadmill

• Tomorrows Realities Gallery 1991 NPSNET-1.

• Treadport Video

• I-Port video

• 1995 Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics video

Other Important Early People& Places...

University ofWashington, Seattle

• HITL

• VEOS

• Retinal scanner

University of Illinois atChicago

• CAVE

Sense8

• WorldToolKit

• WorldUp

Other Important Early People& Places...

Homebrew VR

• Powerglove

• Rend386

Coryphaeus Software

• Designer’s workbench

• Easy Terrain

• EasyScene

MultiGen, Inc.

• MultiGen II

• SmartScene

Division, Inc.

• dVISE

Fakespace, Inc.

• BOOM displays

Miscellaneous VideoSuggestions• ACM SIGGRAPH Video

Review 96, 1993, Entry 7:is the Univ. of Illinois,Chicago CAVE

• Show the Boeing VR tapeof August 93. This is a goodtape demoing the BOOM. Italso shows the relationshipof CAD to VR, with one ofthe best augmented realitydemos.

Miscellaneous VideoSuggestions• Show the Tomorrows

Realities Gallery ’91 JuryReel.

• ACM SIGGRAPH VideoReview Vol. 70, 1992.Another Laurin Herr tape.Includes TRG ’91 stufftowards the end of the tape(30 minutes in). NPSNETfrom TRG ’91 is on the tape(scripted LHD-1 landing).

• Show the BBN tape onSIMNET.

• Show the 73 Eastingvideotape, one with allthree segments on it.

• Show the Warbreaker tape(pretty good).

vr - the historical context - moves institutezyda/courses/1historyofvr.pdf · vr - the historical...

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