Introduction

We began the show with a briefing on Virtual Reality - what it is and what it isn't. Infomaniac Erick Von Schweber was the Ringmaster and Linda kept things running semi-smoothly.

CAVEman Epranian kept the machines operating under unbelievable odds. All that alpha and beta code kept us on our toes.

Mike Vader was the world's coolest stage manager handling this, the largest production at COMDEX/Spring '95. With 5 huge screens arranged in an arc, 5 projectors feeding them the output from 11 sources (2 video and 9 computers), all going through a switcher that was delivered 15 minutes before showtime... Mike did a terrific job.

Our navigators were all fantastic.

Briefing: Defining VR

Six Degrees of Freedom in Real Time, Through the Window

We started with "Spaceman Ziff" - aka Jim Galley - Executive Director of PC Magazine Labs. Jim gave us a wild ride through Interplay's 6 DOF (Degrees of Freedom) game, Descent, using a new controller - the Spaceball Avenger - from Spacetec IMC. Jim and CAVEman demonstrated 3D in real-time with 6 degrees of freedom. This was VR "Through the Window". Descent was running in DOS on an HP Vectra 90 with a Matrox MGA graphics board and a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Awe32. And awesome it was!

Tim Rubin was the operator of VR Cam. Using i-glasses from Virtual I/O, a Cinema Products' Steadicam JR, and a Canon LX100 Hi-8 video camera, Tim closed in on the Avenger so all could see it's immensely cool design. Through out the show, Tim carried on, in spite of technical difficulties, giving us close-ups of as many products as possible. Tim now wants i-glasses for all his shoots.

Mutability and Interactivity

Joe Stewart from Template Graphics Software (TGS) showed us an example of mutability - changing a scene from inside that scene. In this case Joe added fog to a scene inside Open Inventor for Windows NT. You can also change the colors and materials of objects and even distort the shapes of objects by pulling and pushing on them from inside an Open Inventor viewer.

3D Into the Room - Time for 3D glasses

We then saw VR "Into the Room" - via 3D projection from a StereoGraphics/Electrohome stereo ready projector and software demonstrated by Tom Coull of Sense8 - showing one of their applications in Windows 3.1 on an HP Vectra 90 with the Matrox MGA board.

StereoGraphics provided the 3D glasses for all and Dalite provided the very special projection screen needed for viewing stereo 3D, rear projected, with these inexpensive glasses. Special thanks to these guys - interactive 3D stereo for a large audience remains a challenge but we pulled it off.

Immersive VR - Head Mounted Displays

Chris Goring of Virtuality Europe came from England to show us "Immersive" VR with their turn-key Elysium system replete with an excellent head mounted display and an absolutely riveting virtual motorcycle demo.

To complete our briefing on styles of VR, we saw avi video of CAVE total immersion technology. This is the four surface (three walls and a floor) stereoscopic unit which gets our visual experience close to the Holodeck.

Jan Ozer, video compression guru of Doceo assisted our video capture efforts with hardware, software, and expertise. The avi was captured with an Intel Smart Video Recorder Pro (from a tape provided by the Electronic Visualization Lab at University of Illinois in Chicago) and it looked great playing full screen at 30fps on the HP Vectra 100 with the new and scarce Matrox Millennium graphics board.

Briefing: Virtual VR

Fly-thru's Autodesk's 3D Studio and IPAS routines

Moving to Virtual VR we saw Beta SP video of a fly-thru created frame by frame by Autodesk using 3D Studio and IPAS routines from the YOST Group and Schrieber Instruments.

HSC's Bryce Animations and Bryce QuickTime VR

Scott Hawthorne, in charge of New Business Development for HSC Software showed us beautiful Bryce animations, complete with 3D clouds and their shadows on the ground. He also flew us through a Bryce QuickTime VR environment, with incredible resolution and landscapes. Scott was running on a PowerMac and hopes to have Bryce on Windows 95 soon.

Into the Multimedium

We then moved into the Multimedium - with transition graphics by the Infomaniacs. TPR Enterprises of NY's strobes were controlled by MIDI commands issued from an Ensoniq TS12 keyboard under the masterful control of Silvi O'Kelly. This was done via a bit of magic from G2-DesignWorks, their Digital Animator, an inexpensive box that uses MIDI information to control 16 channels of continuously varying voltage (0-24V).

Silvi also played the keyboard and provided us with wonderful sound effects. We were set up to control a Rosco Laboratories' 1500 Fog Machine with MIDI commands as well, but alas, the AV rental company delivered a High End Systems model 100 atmosphere machine instead. This was controlled manually. Rosco Labs provided endless support for getting their fog machine wired up to the Digital Animator, however. A complete demonstration of the use of theatrical effects to create greater audience immersion awaits the next show!

Virtus Walkthrough Pro 2.0

Richard Boyd, VP of Virtus Works, showed us various multimedia capabilities in their Mac product. We not only saw images, we saw a QuickTime movie playing inside the world, mapped to a wall in a virtual conference room. Topping that, we saw a live video feed off a Connectix QuickCam video camera, fed into the world and playing even as we moved around the world. This was on a PowerMac. Virtus Walkthrough Pro 2.0 was also running efficiently in Windows for Workgroups on a Toshiba T4900CT - a pentium laptop. VR to go.

Vream's VR Creator (Alpha)

Ed Lahood, President of VREAM, took us on a tour of VREAM's virtual offices. Pretty cool digs. Inside we found all the multimedia we could want including text, graphics, video, and links to other Windows applications. These were fun worlds designed by Run and Gun of Chicago IL. Ed used the new 3 button Trackman Vista trackball from Logitech to navigate these realms. Ed also had access to the world wide web, email, Excel, Word, and more from inside his virtual office. Ed was running on an HP Vectra Pentium 100 with a Matrox Millennium graphics board and a Sound Blaster Awe32 from Creative Labs.

Virtuality's Elysium

Chris Goring of Virtuality Europe took us on a motorbike ride, complete with helmet (headmount). It was great fun. He also adjusted the anesthesia on some poor virtual dude - Chris told the audience that if he had more time he could certainly have killed this subject. The Elysium turn-key system performed beautifully and the virtual hand control looked incredibly powerful. This ran on Virtuality's turnkey Elysium system using an IBM 486 with 2 (you can have up to 8) proprietary graphics boards.

Sense8's World Tool Kit 2.0 for Windows NT

Tom Coull, President of Sense8, took us to Mars. He ran the program Sense8 built for NASA which will allow them to control the movement of the Mars rover on the surface of Mars despite the fact that it takes several minutes for light to reach Earth from Mars. It ran on the Intergraph TD4 with GLI graphics in Windows NT, was fully texture mapped and ran impressively smoothly. It ran in World Tool Kit for Windows NT, a VR toolkit for Microsoft's Visual C++.

TGS's Open Inventor (Beta)

Joe Stewart, Director of New Business Development for Template Graphics Software (TGS), faced the most technical difficulties with aplomb. Joe was also on the Intergraph TD4 with GLI graphics. He showed us a model of the solar system running in TGS's first beta release of Open Inventor. This brand new beta of Open Inventor runs in Windows NT and depends on Microsoft's Visual C++. For those of you new to Open Inventor, there's lots more functionality and visual splendor in the product. We look forward to seeing the final release.

E&S's Midnight Manor

CAVEman Epranian took us on a tour of Midnight Manor - a demo game developed by Evans & Sutherland - running on their Freedom graphics board in an HP Vectra 100 with Windows NT. The game is built in Sense8's WorldToolKit and it looked like a lot of fun, ghosts and all. Handling textures is the forte of the Freedom Graphics board.

Intergraph's Design Review

Donna Coleman showed us Intergraph's Design Review running on the Intergraph TD4 with GLI graphics. This great program loaded and ran humongous models of pipes, cabling and industrial building subsystems. She showed its attached video and text clips, and mentioned that audio annotation was also supported. Donna gave us a fascinating tour - amazing us with capabilities of this software and hardware. She was even able to bring up Microsoft Word 6.0 with documentation - from the real-time world. The Intergraph was running Microsoft Windows NT.

VR as the Interface to Cyberspace

Then came the most exciting portion of all - the World Wide Web Worlds - in glorious 3D.

UB Networks' InterWorld VR

We started with Tim Wild of UB Networks (formerly Ungerman Bass) showing us their InterWorld VR product. Tim went to www.kaworlds.com on the world wide web. There he was able to choose an avatar (3d animated representation) for himself (a very funny teddy bear he calls Super Cool) and interact with and talk to another person who was visiting the world. She appeared to us as a blue ball with her name printed above her. They went into a private room to have a conversation... Later Tim found Eli Zelkha (looking, presumably, like himself), also of UB Networks, in the web world. Eli showed us how the technology can be used to show clients 3 dimensional views of products. Cool stuff. UB Networks builds such worlds for people. Tim fell in love with the RemotePoint cordless hand-held mouse from Interlink Electronics of Santa Barbara Ca.. Tim was using a 14.4 PCMCIA Noteworthy modem in the Toshiba T4900CT pentium laptop running Windows for Workgroups.

Vream's WebView (Alpha)

VREAM was the surprise addition to this line-up. They showed their just announced WebView product. This used VREAM's proprietary WebView viewer (but future versions will use VRML as well). They showed us Chicago in 3D - projecting the possibility that each building would be a node linking you out to another 3D world. Ed also showed us a shopping mall on the web... Wouldn't we all like to have our products there? Vream was running in Windows 3.1 on the HP Vectra 100 with Matrox Millennium graphics board. His modem was an external Sportster 28.8 data/fax v.34 modem from US Robotics.

TGS's WebSpace

Joe Stewart showed us TGS's and SGI's entry into this field. Their product is WebSpace and is based on VRML (the Virtual Reality Modeling Language which is a subset of SGI's Open Inventor .iv format). The PC WebSpace viewer can be downloaded soon from the SGI www address below and run on NT. Due to technical difficulties (with PPP, not with their technology) Joe was not able to show us the many wonderful worlds available. We were able to examine a molecular model and even zoom in for a scientifically realistic depiction. Also in the WebSpace demo was a planetary model with animated planets following elliptical orbits. Joe was also using an external Sportster 28.8 data/fax v.34 modem from US Robotics.

TGS's WebSpace 3D Viewer is available for SGI machines and Windows NT now. By the end of June we should have it for Windows. It can then be downloaded from www.sd.tgs.com/~template To optimally use this viewer you should have Netscape Navigator or Enhanced NCSA Mosaic from Spyglass but it will work with any net browser. 3D worlds can be found (capitalization matters) at www.sgi.com/Products/WebFORCE/WebSpace.

We will send updates as more worlds come onto the web. For more information read these:
From Homepages to Homeworlds: Web goes 3D
Putting the "Space in Cyberspace"

PC Magazine makes a Great Handout!

We closed the show by handing out copies of the May 14, 1995 Issue (# 5) of PC Magazine with our review of VR: Virtual Reality...Virtually Here. This was authored by Linda & Erick Von Schweber of Infomaniacs, and Brad Epranian of Gray Productions. This review documented most of the products used in the show. The major exceptions were the newest stuff: the Spaceball Avenger and Descent, all TGS software, Design Review. The World Wide Web Worlds are described in our new Trends piece for PC Magazine's June 13th 1995 issue # 15.

Supporting Products

3D clip models were provided by Accuris, Viewpoint Data Labs, Visual Software, and Noumenon Labs.

Adobe provided Photoshop and Premiere and HSC Software sent us Kai's Power Tools and Convolver. Each of these applications demonstrated that even in the realm of 3D you still need good imaging tools for your multimedia content.

Quercus Systems provided their Personal Rexx for both Windows 3.1 and NT. This is a handy cross-platform batch language to automate Windows procedures and demos.

Turtle Beach provided Wave for Windows V2, an excellent program for editing and shaping audio material in .wav format.

PC Video Conversion supplied multiple Hyperconverters, scan converters that take high res graphics (up to 1280x1024) and convert them into an NTSC signal recordable on a VCR (from VHS to Beta SP). Excellent quality, especially at this price point.

David Arkenstone's Music Set the Mood

Pre-show and Post-show music was provided courtesy of Narada Media and David Arkenstone (we're big fans of David and consider him the musical adventurer of the human spirit).

Pre-show: "The Malabar Caves" from the Narada Album _Citizen of Time_ by David Arkenstone (c) 1990 Narada Music, Inc. (p) 1990 Narada Productions, Inc. All rights reserved. Use by permission of Narada Productions, Inc.

Post-show: "Prelude: Talis the Messenger" from the Narada Album _Quest of the Dream Warrior_ by David Arkenstone (c)1995 Narada Music, Inc. (p) 1995 Narada Productions, Inc. All rights reserved. Use by permission of Narada Productions, Inc.

This new album by David is astonishing and an absolutely wonderful adventure (the CD is accompanied by a fantasy adventure story and a map of the realm - anyone out there interested in partnering to produce an interactive 3D adventure game of Quest of the Dream Warrior ?).

Setting the Stage

Throughout our theater were sculptures of light that evoked images from the Sci Fi genre. 2001, Alien, and Terminator came easily to mind. These wonderfully unique lights including 2 monoliths and others made of found objects and techno refuse were provided courtesy of Eclectic Electric Gallery. The artists are Jay and Alan Marsh and we predict great success for them.

And here's the ultimate "supporting" product. Special thanks to Intermetro Industries of Wilkes Barre Pa. for providing the 5 black wireframe racks that supported all our VR equipment. We've tried all sorts of desks, racks, pedestals, etc. in our labs, but these Metro racks are by far the sturdiest, most flexible, and easiest to setup and tear down. They are reasonably priced and look very High Tech! Highly recommended.

Graphics: Planned and Under Fire

The explosive Infomaniacs title was by Peter Plantec of DreamScape Productions in Caligari trueSpace 2.0 beta. Very impressive use of trueSpace, Peter - thank you. An animated wave was created for us by Terry Cotant of Reliable Software Solutions (also in trueSpace 2.0 beta) but it sadly arrived too late. We connected with these wonderful artists through the help of Bill Allen, publisher of 3D Artist, one of our favorite magazines.

The animated wave we used was masterfully produced under fire in the last 10 minutes before the show started by Elizabeth Wood of Egland, Wood & Zuber.

All other graphics were provided by the sponsoring companies themselves.

Heros, Encouraging Words, and Champions

Our Heros Pitched In

Special thanks to those who came to visit and ended up jumping in to help wherever needed. Hardware troubleshooting under fire was handled masterfully by John Hill of JAH Consulting. Last minute PR assistance was generously provided by Rick McCabe of CD Review.

Encouraging Words at the Critical Moments

Nearly last but not least - we received moral support from a wonderful collection of people. Special thanks to all including Robin Raskin, Executive Editor of PC Magazine; Jeff Mace, Graphics Project Leader at PC Magazine Labs; John Delaney, Director of Operations of PC Magazine; and Jim Karney of CAPA (Computer Aided Publishing Associates).

We were delighted that our long-time supporters and collaborators Marcia and Daniel Pearson stopped by before leaving for their new home in Oxford, England.

Champions at Softbank Comdex Made It All Possible

Heartfelt thanks to our champions at Softbank Comdex. Jim Lucas, Director of Conference Development gave us total support for this experiment. Sue Peterson, Operations Manager made sure we had all the AV equipment and manpower we asked for. Julia Richardson, made sure we had everything we needed in the crazy hours before showtime. Long before the show itself, Ann Zevnik of Softbank Comdex's publishing arm was invaluable in getting the word out.

What didn't make it...

Our laboratory at Comdex was a lab in the truest sense: we were pushing the envelope right up to show time, and even managed to pull in some products that arrived Tuesday ( the show was on Wednesday!). But we weren't able to integrate everything at the last minute - and a few planned experiments turned out to be premature.

Our apologies to the following sponsors who provided products and demos which did not make it into the show for one reason or another. We will make every effort to make sure you are in the next show and added to the video tape of this show.

Autodesk's CDK was in the line-up - especially to show its facility with physics and to show its ability to drag and drop a 3D studio .3ds file into their viewer and move around in it, while animated. Due to time restrictions and the lack of a navigator, this fell out.

We had Star Trek - the Next Generation - Interactive Technical Manual courtesy of Simon & Schuster Interactive. Only limits of time kept this from running - it uses QuickTimeVR to allow you to explore the Enterprise inside and out.

StereoGraphics provided a 3D video fly-thru of San Francisco. Due to technical difficulties we weren't able to play this.

Virtual Reality Labs sent beautiful Virtual VR fly-thru's done in VistaPro and in DistantSuns.

HSC Software provided cool avi clips produced with Autodesk's 3D Studio and their add-in product, KAI's Texture Explorer.

Ascension and Polhemus provided 3D tracking systems and sensors, but the Sense8 demos that exploited these trackers were unavailable at show time.

Infogrip provided a matched set of BAT chord keyboards, enabling an immersed user to enter with one hand any text or commands that can be entered from a standard qwerty keyboard. We lacked a demo that could accept keystrokes into the virtual world (not surprising with the constraints of a standard keyboard) and therefore could not give the BAT a chance to stretch its wings.

Silicon Graphics provided an Indy so TGS could show additional features of Open Inventor that will be in their Windows NT port soon, including Annotator. Joe was not able to access the necessary files so we did not get to see this.

Caligari provided beta of trueSpace2.0 - which does real time rendering on the Matrox MGA board. Our demo world was graciously provided at the last minute by Terry Cotant of Reliable Software Solutions but arrived too late, unfortunately.

Andersen Consulting had provided their great Sense8-based training application which they use in house to train people in object oriented programming. Due to a technical glitch, this was not shown.

Inscape provided their AVS program for real-time modeling. Unfortunately, we did not have a navigator prepared to show off this incredible program.

We got connected too late with Warp from Sausalito Ca. to find a compatible fisheye video lens for their very impressive Warp TV technology.

Our fog and strobes were to be triggered from inside a virtual world via MIDI commands with the assistance of Cakewalk Professional. Cakewalk and Vream were both up to it but the time schedule was not. The Ensoniq entered here as a source of MIDI data.

At the last minute we got clearance to show WinDoom with the Logitech WingMan Extreme Joystick and 3D sound from Crystal River Engineering. Too much too late, I'm afraid. It runs in Windows 95 and we just didn't have a system ready to take it. Next time.

We also hoped to show portable, 3D accelerated VR. Accelerator board, driver, and host cpu incompatibilities relegate this fusion to the next show, though Dolch Computer, 3D Labs, Omnicomp, and Future Vision/Fujitso made valiant efforts.

Production People & Places

Production and Show Design

Linda & Erick Von Schweber, Infomaniacs,
1-800-MINDWAVE, thinktank@infomaniacs.com.

Hardware Configuration

CAVEman Epranian, Gray Productions, San Francisco, CA

Stage Manager

Mike Vader, Vader Consulting Group, Pleasanton, CA

Video Director and VR Cam

Tim Rubin, Videographer, Danville, CA

Lighting Design

Tim Rubin and Mike Vader

Ambient Lighting

Jay & Alan Marsh of Atlanta, GA and Eclectic Electric Gallery, Atlanta, GA

Graphics - Titles & F/X

Peter Plantec, DreamScape Productions, Beverly Hills, CA.
Elizabeth Wood, Egland, Wood & Zuber, Atlanta, GA.
Barry Zuber, Egland, Wood & Zuber, Atlanta, GA.
Linda & Erick Von Schweber, Infomaniacs, Cyberspace.
Digital Video; Jan Ozer, Doceo, Atlanta, GA

Additional Hardware Troubleshooting

John Hill, JAH Consulting, Bronx, NY

Additional Hardware Support

Nicolai Egnell, Fort Lauderdale, FL

PR Assistance

Rick McCabe, CD Review, Charlotte, NC

Infomaniacs' Make-up

Wanda O'Kelly, Atlanta, GA

Costume Design

Linda Von Schweber, Infomaniacs, Cyberspace

Costumes

Daniel Slack, 3D Creative Services, Atlanta, GA

MIDI Keyboard

Silvi O'Kelley, Atlanta, GA.

AV Set-up Support

TAVS (Total Audio Video Services), Atlanta, GA

Production Design Software

3D Stage Layout: Virtus Walkthrough Pro (yes, we laid out the VR show in cyberspace)

2D Stage Layout and Storyboards: CorelDraw

Navigators - In Order of Appearance

• Jim Galley, PC Magazine, NY, NY.
• Joe Stewart, Template Graphics Software, San Diego, CA.
• Tom Coull, Sense8, Sausalito, CA
• Chris Goring, Virtuality Europe, UK
• Scott Hawthorne, HSC Software, Carpenteria, CA.
• Richard Boyd, Virtus Works, Cary, NC.
• Ed Lahood, Vream Chicago, IL.
• Donna Coleman, Intergraph, Huntsville, AL.
• Tim Wild, UB Networks, Santa Clara, CA.
• Virtual Eli Zelkha, UB Networks, Santa Clara, CA.

Hardware/Software List

VR Cam

• Virtual I/O's i-glasses
• Cinema Products Steadicam JR
• Canon LX100

Hewlett Packard Vectra X/U 90 Pentium

• Matrox MGA graphics board
• Spacetec IMC Spaceball Avenger
• Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE32
• Interplay's Descent
• Sense8 World Took Kit 2.0 for Windows - stereographic kitchen app

Electrohome Stereo ready projector Marquis 8100

• StereoGraphics Z-screens for the projector
• StereoGraphics frequency doubler GCD3
• Polaroid 3D passive polarized glasses (courtesy of StereoGraphics)
• Rear projection lenticular fresnel 3D screen from Dalite,

VIrtuality Europe - Elysium - turn-key Immersive VR system

• IBM 486
• Virtuality's V-PC operating system
• V-Space - Immersive VR toolset
• 2 VR-PC Accelerator cards
• Visette2 headmount
• Other ruggedised peripherals

Ensoniq TS12 keyboard

• G2-DesignWorks' Digital Animator MIDI control box
• TPR Enterprises strobe lights

Betacam SP video tape produced with

• Autodesk 3D Studio
• YOST Group IPAS routines

Hewlett Packard Vectra X/U 100 Pentium

• Windows for Workgroups 3.11
• Intel Smart Video Recorder Pro
• Matrox Millennium graphics board
• Creative Labs Sound Blaster Awe32
• Logitech Trackman Vista Trackball
• US Robotics' Sportster 28.8 data/fax v.34 external modem
• Microsoft Video for Windows
• Adobe Photoshop 3.0
• HSC KPT Convolver 1.0
• Adobe Premiere 4.0
• Vream VR Creator (Alpha)
• Vream WebView (Alpha)

PowerMac 8100/80

• Standard Apple 24 bit color card
• Micronet 4 gigabyte Barracuda Drive
• HSC Software's Bryce
• QuickTime VR from Apple Computers

PowerMac 6100/60AV

• Virtus Walkthrough Pro 2.0
• Connectix QuickCam Camera
• Apple QuickTime

Toshiba T4900CT Pentium

• Microsoft Windows for Workgroups 3.11
• Noteworthy NW144CR PCMCIA 14.4 fax/modem
• Noteworthy BusToaster PCMCIA SCSI-II Adapter
• Interlink Electronics RemotePoint cordless
• Virtus Walkthrough Pro for Windows

Intergraph TD4 Dual Pentium with GLI graphics

• Microsoft Windows NT 3.5
• US Robotics' Sportster 28.8 data/fax v.34 external modem
• Sense8 World Tool Kit 2.0 for Windows NT
• Microsoft Visual C++ 2.0
• Template Graphics Software (TGS) Open Inventor for Windows NT (Beta)
• TGS & SGI's WebSpace (Beta)
• Intergraph's Design Review
• Microsoft Word for Windows 6.0 for NT

Hewlett Packard Vectra X/U 100 pentium

• Evans & Sutherland's Freedom Graphics board
• Microsoft Windows 3.1
• Sense8 World Tool Kit 2.0 for Windows NT
• Microsoft Visual C++ 2.0

We had the participation of about 65 vendors for this show and each and every one of them played an important role in this successful experiment. We thank them and remind all of you, Fall Comdex is just around the corner.