VR performance & wearable computer (fwd)

From: Eugene Leitl (Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
Date: Tue Sep 04 2001 - 23:29:20 MDT


-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204/">leitl</a>
______________________________________________________________
ICBMTO : N48 10'07'' E011 33'53'' http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204
57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2001 11:59:41 +1000
From: Miriam English <miriam@werple.net.au>
Reply-To: wear-hard@haven.org
To: wear-hard@haven.org
Subject: VR performance & wearable computer
Resent-Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 21:46:41 -0400
Resent-From: wear-hard@haven.org

Hi Folks,

I know time is a bit short on this, but it just occurred to me that the
people here would probably be interested because of the tech edge and
wearable computer involved.

A Virtual Reality dance performance will be on at the Capitol theatre
tomorrow thru till the end of next week.

The Capitol Theatre, 113 Swanston Street, Melbourne, Australia at 8pm.
On the 6, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15 September. Entry will be $22/$16.

Company In Space are a dance group who have a reputation for doing very
technologically adventurous performances. This one is set inside virtual
worlds.

The show is being calculated in real-time -- no image compositing. It is
experimental dance and music, so not everybody's cup of tea, but from a
technology point-of-view it is a geek's paradise. :-)

Hellen, the dancer, will be dancing in the theatre before the audience and
will simultaneously be projected into virtual spaces on the big screen as
an avatar (the body you wear in a virtual world). She wears a special suit
that reads all her movements. She is also wearing a small single board
computer -- a Gene-4310 about the size of a CD case with a 233MHz Geode
processor -- which transmits all the movement data via a wireless network
to a group of other computers. At the moment the Gene-4310 is there simply
to relay data from the suit to the wireless LAN, but there are plans to
give Hellen a screen and a twiddler to let her control how her suit data is
used.

One of those computers is a *very* fast laptop which uses the data to show
virtual environments and humanoids. Some aspects of the worlds and
humanoids (it changes a lot) are under Hellen's control, some aspects are
under the control of another computer in Florida, USA where a "Flock of
Birds" input system is being operated by someone else (in real time).
Sometimes Hellen's movement data causes the avatar being projected on the
screen of the theatre to mirror her movements, sometimes she operates
things like sound or light and the avatar (or something else) is controlled
from Florida.

Expect the shows to evolve over the week and a half. If you want to come
along more than once John mentioned to me that a lower entry fee is
possible. This is such an extroadinary event -- way beyond anything I have
heard of here or anywhere else in the world.

Best wishes,

         - Miriam

---------=---------=---------=---------=---------=---------=------
Q. What is the similarity between an elephant and a grape?
A. They are both purple... except for the elephant.
---------=---------=---------=---------=---------=---------=------
http://werple.net.au/~miriam
http://members.optushome.com.au/miriame
Virtual Reality Association http://www.vr.org.au

--
Subscription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with subject of
"subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" to wear-hard-request@haven.org
Wear-Hard Mailing List Archive (searchable): http://wearables.blu.org
please, Please, *PLEASE* don't subscribe through a forward/false domain



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:25 MDT