Re: ARCH: Virtual spaces and nets

Daniel D. Todd (ddtodd@ucdavis.edu)
Tue, 14 Jun 1994 10:02:59 -0700


At 10:58 AM 6/14/94 BST, Steve Hedges wrote:
>Craig Presson writes:

>I agree that we should try to maintain some link to the real-world
>co-ordinate system, but we should recognise that people usually use
>_several_ different systems, depending upon the size, distance and
>type of the object being referred to. A discussion of this can be
>found in "The naive physics manifesto" by Hayes (I think).
>
>One possible approach is to have two co-ordinate systems - global
>(which could be euclidean, spherical or even a ring topology) and
>local (which would be specified independently by each developer). We
>could see the global system as specifying the positions of a number of
>rooms. Entering such a room would entert that room's co-ordinate
>system.

I don't understand why everyone seems to be putting some form of limits oh\n
the space. I think that 3D seems the only alternative if we are to display
this in any visual form but to use a model like ringworld or a sphere seems
to be too limiting. Wouldn't a form of indefinite 3D space seem more
appropriate? The use of multiple groups to create a 'universe' or a single
massive 'space' could be a local ption driven by the client. Is there a
reason for limiting the space to a particular dimension that I am missing?

cheers,
Dan

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