91-07/W.Indus.descrip Leicester based W Industries recently lanuched the world's first VR system intended for the leisure market. The Virtuality 1000SD is a three-part system comprising of Visette (the visor), Animette (the core software/OS) and Expality (the brains of the unit). Visette incorporates two colour LCDs with a resolution of 300x200 (I think - the resolution was given when describing VR systems in general, but as they probably only knew about one system, it's reasonable to assume that everything refers to Virtuality). Each screen is sent a slightly different images, one for the left eye and one for the right. The images are what each eye would see if it was in the virtual-world, therefore giving true binocular vision (I am resonably new to VR so I don't know if this is standard, but I haven't heard of VPL's system having it). The helmet also has four speakers (so that you can tell which direction a sound is coming from. Also, of course, you can have four sounds simultaneously), and a microphone. The whole thing weights under 3kg (7lb), and feels rather like a motorbike helmet, except that one size fits almost any head. It is a pleasure to use, and the tracking system works superbly. Animette manages the entire system, including doppler-shifted sampled sound, networking machines together for player interaction and all the graphics involved. Expality is the star of the system, and certainly packs some punch. The system incoporates an entire Amiga 3000, CD Rom and/or hard disks, 16+ Mb of memory and two very advanced graphics boards, each using the TMS34020/TMS34082 chip set to produce graphics at up to 30,000 shaded polygons per second - quite a stunning specification compared to anything in the arcades. Indeed the arcade unit is a cutdown version of a scientific/engineering machine to be launched at a later date. The whole unit is completely modular, and more or less any part can be replaced when better technology becomes avalible. A high degree of parallelism is also inherent in the design. Because it would be impractible (and dangerous) for players to run around a video game arcade blind and deaf inside a Visette the SD in the 1000Sd stands for 'sit down'. Games are played from a huge plastic armchair, and controlled by two convetional joysticks mounted on the arms. The two games with which the system has been launched are, however, something of a letdown. the first game VTOL, is a Harrier-style jet fighter game. By blowing apart successive waves of enemy you win more fuel, or at least the opportunity to try refueling. However the game gains little from the 3D environment avalible, and could quite easily run on a normal arcade machine. Battlesphere is a much better effort, and begins to exploit VR properly. A space shoot-'em-up, it features head-up display targetting, allowing your guns to track your gaze. It quickly becomes second nature to sweep your head around to track the enemy craft, or to shoot down ships trying to get on your tail. With practise, you are soon flying through swarms of enemy craft, shooting in all directions. The other controls, however are rather complex, so reading the info sheet before inserting your coin is recommended. It's certainly an experience worth trying, but VR, even at the current level of avalible technology, has much more than this to offer. One of the advantages of the system is the ablity to link machines. This means that several players (the number can be as high as twenty five) can play together in the same airspace and communicate with each other via the microphone in the Visette. More details on Battlesphere : This time the joystick control system requires a little more practise as the number of options increase. You have a number of shot types, plus hyperspace, and the ultimate weapon the choas charge. Combine these options with the movement of your craft and things really start to get confusing, thank heavens for the practise scenarios which allow you to shoot it out in hostile asteroid environs before attempting the full game and the enemy motherships. More games are planned and not just using the joystick control method. For racing fans there will be (or probably is by mow) an add on steering wheel which replaces the joysticks. One future development to look out for is the Visette II which will allow eye tracking (you can change your view just by moving your eyes as you do in real life). Taking a step away from the arcade game is the stand-up unit. In this version of Virtuality you see not only great potential for games but the more serious application the product is capable of. For a start you can walk around. This is achieved by sensors in the helmet which register in a magnetic field (at the moment that is generated by a ceiling mounted unit). The range is not great as yet, about 1.5 meters from the central position but again that will be increased in the very near future. So now you have this ability to walk around in a computer generated environment what can you do there? On show (the article doesn't say that it was a general press conference or a demostration just for them) was a room around which you could walk containing several areoplanes. These models could be grasped, rotated and thrown. The bouncing ball simulation gave you the same room containing a ball which could be caught, thrown and bounced off walls and other surfaces. Another development is the Virtuality Force Feedback Glove. the version I (the author of the article) tried on was a little primitive but it was in the early stages of development. By using little airbags which inflate on command from the main unit, the glove simulates contact with a solid object. It does not feel like the object touched (that is to come later with a technique known as texture mapping which allows different surface areas of a solid to have their own texture) but you know your hand has hit a solid object. Even in its primitive pre-production state the glove was sensitive enough to let you know which fingers were actually in contact with an object i.e.you could poke things. The sense of touch is still in its early days of development but don't be surprised if you see an exo-skeleton with full touch capabilities before the end of the year. So far we've seen the positive side of Virtuality but what about all those nasty little germs that can pass from head to head as each person clamps on the head unit and the possiblity of losing your mind and becoming a virtual junky? The high density foam in the Visette is a new polmer developed for the Visette. Unlike conventional materials bacteria and other nasties are unable to adhere to the surface and thus spread from person to person. As to losing your mind that is up to you, but the health and saftey people have passed the machine. This all started with the birth of Jon Waldern. A graduate of Loughborogh university with a degree in Industrial Design and a Phd in Spacial Imaging, Jon decided that the every day computer aided design program lacked a little something, like 3D and decent object manipulation. This coupled with work in '82-'83 with IBM and their tests into human/computer interaction brought about the idea of a virtual reality design system. From there Jon developed a simple virtual reality machine in '86. It looked like something from a Doctor Who episode with a TV perched on a stalk. By moving the set around the room it would act as a window through which you could view the computer generated room. The geaphics were simple line drawings and the hardware cost half a million pounds. This led to the creation of W Industries in '87, a company dedicated to bringing virtual reality to the mass market. Early products included the Super X bounce around and rattle your bones simulator and a very odd virtual reality machine known as the giraffe. This early version of the Virtuality system won W Industries the Design award and a twenty thousand pound prize, which is also the price of a brand new Virtuality system, a bargain if ever there was one.