ESS 99

11th EUROPEAN SIMULATION SYMPOSIUM
AND EXHIBITION

October 26-28, 1999
Castle, Friedrich-Alexander University,
Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany


Virtual Reality


Track Chair: Björn Kesper
Universität Hamburg
Fachbereich Informatik
Arbeitsbereich Technische Informatiksysteme
Vogt-Kölln-Straße 30
22527 Hamburg, Germany
e-mail: kesper@informatik.tu-clausthal.de
http: http://www.in.tu-clausthal.de/Personal/kesper.htm


Co-Track Chair: Dietmar P.F. Möller
TU Clausthal
Institut für Informatik
Julius Albert str. 4
38678 Clausthal, Germany
Tel.: +49.5323.953115, +49.5323.953114,  +49.5323.953110
e-mail:
moeller@informatik.TU-Clausthal.de


INTRODUCTION AND MOTIVATION
In simulation science the methodology of Virtual Reality, short VR, or virtual environments, offers possibilities for points of collaboration and common interests maintaining environmental coherence across room/lab changes as well as hardware, software and product design and in education and training.
Virtual environments, like simulators, are a natural domain for collaborative activities because they allow users doing operations they cannot do in reality, e.g. being within a molecule, being inside the combustion chamber of an automotive engine, walking through a tunnel in "outerspace", etc.
For all these areas and others, the inclusion of a metaphor incorporating a notation of a virtual world provides significant enrichment.
In general, virtual environments allow sharing simulations. As in real laboratory spaces and design centres people must be able to talk to each other, move around, connect equipment, build up test sets, design systems highlight points of interest for others to consider, and jointly edit documents, reports and 3-D models.
The ultimate promise of virtual reality, though, is that users will be able to do things they cannot do so easy in reality. In such cases, users will be able to jointly interact with simulations. Our motivation for virtual lab and virtual design development should be to go one step beyond ubiquitous computing. The basic idea of ubiquitous computing, is that a single computer should not be the locus of computation in one's laboratory, business or other environment.
Technology should be embedded and/or distributed in the environment in an invisible as well as in a transparent way. Within this virtual reality environment there would be lots of computationally driven gadgets or so called smart appliances throughout, each one could be part of a larger system of co-ordinated devices, receiving and transmitting signals from the abroad or from intrinsic systemic pathways. Our goal in simulation synergy in laboratories and outer space problems should be to unite the power and flexibility of virtual reality methodology with the insight of ubiquitous computing.
The potentials of VR are huge. We have only scratched the surface of the complex space that potentially contains an incredible number of solutions to the problem of how best to design systems/processes.
We are looking forward to get papers and presentation concerning themes that are listed underneath. The listing does not exclude contributions in a similar context.

 


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  Last modified 10-02-99 by Rainer Rimane
For further information please contact:
mailto: Rainer.Rimane@informatik.uni-erlangen.de,info@scs-europe.org