>From: almquist@brahms.udel.edu (Squish) >Sender: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu (Human Int. Technology Lab) >Organization: *STUCK* at UofD for 3 mo' months >a VR platform, I've come across an interesting question. What are the >human limiting degrees in vision and hearing? What's that mean? What >is our total range of vision? 180 degrees? What about an individual >_human_ eye? How much overlap is there between the two eyes? How >about hearing? Can each ear hear 360 degrees or does the meat get in >the way? How much overlap is there between the ears as in the eyes? For the answers to all these questions and more, check out "Humanscale" by Niels Diffrient, Alvin Tilley, and David Harman, published by MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. It comes in several sets of books and nifty plastic rotary spinners and detailed charts. The sets are available in threes: 1/2/3, 4/5/6, and 7/8/9. 1 Sizes of people 2 Seating considerations 3 Requirements for handicapped and elderly 4 Human strength and safety 5 Hand and foot controls and displays 6 Head and vision, hands and feet 7 Standing and sitting at work 8 Space planning for the individual and public 9 Access for maintenance, stairs, light, and color It's incredibly detailed with all sorts of cool facts, tables, and graphs, like "the human body acts as an antenna and has a resonant frequency of about 70 megahertz", or a diagram indicating which angles of rear illumination (approaching from behind your head, over your ear) are likely to cause distracting reflections for people who wear eyeglasses. Steve Strassmann MIT Media Lab straz@media-lab.media.mit.edu