Re: WEB : Mapping out communal cyberspace

Knut Olav Homlong (Knut.Homlong@nora.hd.uib.no)
Mon, 13 Jun 1994 15:52:03 +0100


>We will we outgrow the world. Most certainly. History has taught us many
>lessons but one in particular is relevant here. We should also build in
>extensibility into the adressing. And so, in order to ensure that there is
>enough for everyone, we could treat the first ringworld as World 0, which
>might take 10 years to complete, but there will always be the ability to
>start building World 1, and then World 2, etc... and we can leave the
>creations of an infinity of new, similar-looking worlds for future
>generations of cybernauts, who might just look back in time as we do
>with the pyramids, and wonder what kind of civilisation put this together.
>
>Reply To: roger@apollo.is.co.za

It seems that participants in this discussion are drawn between several
seemingly inconsistent principles of vr organization, eg infinite space vs
ease of navigation.

I would like to suggest a metaphor that may at first seem too obvious, or
even outdated, but which _could_ prove useful in preserving both intuitive
navigation, expandability, and flexible geometry: the galaxy.

One would obviously want to start building _one_ solar system, and when
this is "full", ie, containing too many bodies to be surveyable, another
can be constructed. The bodies of the solar system(s) need not, of course,
be spherical. Ring worlds would fit in well, and so would bodies with
non-euclidean geometries.

Navigation modes:

- RL, as in a plane
- data base search (name, location, subject, RL attributes)
- coordinates
- point-clicking in the "sky", where each "star" (ie celestial body) would
have an identifying and informative tag.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Knut Olav Homlong |(-) knuto@hd.uib.no