The founder of Lotus 1-2-3 and also the Chairman of Second Life, Mitch Kapor, spoke at a recent meeting focused on the future of 3D virtual worlds. During his talk he predicted that 3D cameras will play a big part in improving the usability of virtual worlds.
Mr. Kapor refers to the technology seen in Minority as what we can expect to see in the next year or so. In the very near future, he predicts that 3D cameras will be built into computers much like regular 2D cameras are today.
Basically, 3D cameras would allow the virtual world software to interpret how users are moving in the real-world and to translate that movement into the software. That could mean, then, that if the user raises his or her hand, so too does their avatar.
"So, if I look to the left in the real world, I just want my avatar to look to the left," Kapor said. "If I smile, I just want my avatar to smile. The cameras should be good enough to pick that up. I think we're going to see an amazing jump in the sense of presence."
Source: cnet.com
3Dwalkthroughs.com is just getting started creating a 3D virtual world/social networking platform that would be a perfect candidate for integrating the type of technology Mr. Kapor is predicting. We have seen a couple of other articles mentioning this type of technology in the past but have yet to see a good demonstration. If anyone has seen one, please let us know.
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I have said in past posts direct input is to 3D environments what the mouse is to flat ones. Which is basically the point of Mitch Kapor in this article - http://www.news.com/8301-13772_3-9873205-52.html?tag=tb — We are using surface devices with Edusim now of course … but as other more natural forms of input emerge I can see this having an impact in immersive education as well.
Cheers,
Rich
http://edusim3d.com
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