shooting-the-rapids-within-your-desk-drawer space :?
James Martin (jamesm@satyrs.engr.CSUFresno.EDU)
Mon, 29 Aug 94 09:24:52 PDT
obligatory obeisance: I have abstained from comment because I am just a wee
tiny, broth of a mere student, & not an expert in graphics (or anything else).
getting to the point: However, I think I see an opportunity to jump right in
here & point out something.
to wit: Brian Slesinsky's notion of a virtual planet upon which folks might
want to place stuff in an orientation appropriate to the local planetary
surface (avoiding rocks, crevasses, babies & elephants on the ground, etc.)
made me think of (also inspired by a recent reference to a water slide) the
possibility that a person might want to (virtually) sit on a canoe floating
in a white-water stream. The person would want to be positioned wrt the water
surface appropriate to floating with the stream. Or she/he might want to grab
a passing branch & thus be displace from the water-propelled mode which you
enter by being appropriately situated wrt the water. A behaviour would result
when you are properly on the water surface. That behaviour would NOT result
if you were NOT properly floating with the water flow. I think that (in some
recreational situations) people would want the (virtual) environment to act
on their person (or vehicle) in an appropriate manner. Thus it would be
important for a person who entered the virtual earth program & "signed-up" to
shoot the rapids in New Zealand, to have that user's VR device automatically
handle "proper" orientation wrt the local portion of that virtual planet.
(One might want to compare, jumping back & forth between the 2, the virtues of
white-water rafting on Beelzebub VII versus Sol III.)
Thus if the user placed her/his hand appropriately wrt to the alligator,
she/he should be able to avoid being bitten. A slight change in position would
automatically result in a different kind of behaviour by the virtual objects.
Does that make any sense??
Thank you for your attention. jamesm@satyrs.engr.csufresno.edu