🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan27.043333.703@rock.concert.net> syzygy@rock.concert.net (Andrew B Smith -- Personal Account) writes:
>
>With all this talk of virtual reality (VR) and the waves of the
>future as related to VR, it has occured to me to ask whether any-
>body has thought to apply standards to the idea...
>
>I've been thinking a great deal on the realistic approach to
>bringing VR to the everyday houshold.  It seems to me that one
>of the strongest advantages any VR application would be total
>compatibility with the majority of other VR applications.  For
>those of us familiar with XWindows on a workstation, we know 
>just how nice it can be to run a graphical application from some-
>where else as if it were on your own machine.  Similar features 
>should be available to VR applications in the future.  To acheive
>this end, it will be necessary to build compatibility into VR worlds.

One in ten (technical) papers that I read on my walks through the
archives includes a call for standards. The problem is that every
group develops their own (admirable) architecture for a VR system,
usually using the client-server paradigm like X. All of these would
work, eventually, but almost none with each other.

More to the point is that the commercial concerns have their own
agenda, primarily of making a product which can sell, which means they
have to cut all sorts of corners to get it useful - none of which
involves generalising the architecture. Why do you think X runs like a
pig - because it is general. It won out because it worked just well
enough, was built for the future, and primarily was cheap, and you
could get the sources.

Frankly, I see the v-w approach going the same way. Lots of the little
companies which now have, and will continue to have niche markets
which will gradually expand, but when there is enough interest, one of
the institution developed general systems will probably take pride of
place.  (I only know of 5D, VEOS, and aviary at the moment. You can
get VEOS from the sci.v-w archives. Alternatively, a few people have
thought about starting from a MUD base - see the mud faqs for where
you can pick up their sources - but all seem to have come to the
conclusion that they are all but useless for the real-time graphically
based environment that most people mean by v-w).
-- 
       Jack               js@biu.icnet.uk
                         
If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
                -- Maslow