Re: PHIL: VRML Visions

Sam Gustman (samg@hanover-crrel.army.mil)
Mon, 13 Jun 1994 09:37:34 -0500

Mark and the VRML'ers,
I am with Amblin Studios (Steven Spielberg's company) and have just been brought
onto a project called Survivors of the Shoah. We will be going around the
world
interviewing all of the remaining holocaust survivors (~250,000). We will
be busy
for a while setting up the network and the database to handle this massive
communciation and database problem, but eventually we will be looking into
ways of
presenting the information. I am very interested in any work you are doing
and have
already done with the USHM. Unfortunately I am new to VR and have not had
a chance
to examine projects like the Labyrinth. Are there clients we can get access to?
Are there any other examples of works in progress that I could look at?

>VRML List Members:
>
>I have been working on the development of a VR interface to WorldWideWeb
>for several months. During this period of time I have been inspired by what
>will be possible when _our_ work is complete. I'd like to share some
>of these visions with you, in the hope that it will help to formulate the
>needs for VRML in the short term, and into the future.
>
>We're all approaching this design from different points of view; my training
>has greatest depth in networking and visualization, others on this list are
>architects and designers. Despite differing needs, our goals are quite often
>congruent, and we must strive to develop a technology which meets the
>needs of the vast majority of its users without sacrificing elegance or
>intelligence.
>
>Mark Pesce
>June 1994
>
>***
>
>Vision One: The United States Holocaust Museum
>When: Now
>The Project:
>
>The USHM project is a joint development between Husky Labs (Washington, D.C.)
>and the Labyrinth Group to produce a WWW site which has both documentary and
>spatial exhibits. The USHM is a unique museum; the architecture of the space
>plays an important role in the story being told. Parts of the Museum look
>like villages in Eastern Europe, a concentration camp, an oven. Visitors
>to the Museum are overwhelmed by the gestalt that is created; that a space
>can be so evocative is one of the strengths of the Museum, and, without it,
>the Museum loses some of its impact upon the imagination and the soul.
>
>When completed, the Museum will be accessible, as a space, from anywhere on
>Internet, to any WWW client which is VRML-capable. It will be possible to
>"tour" the Museum, just as is done in real space, with many links from the
>virtual space of the Museum into Web pages which describe, in greater
>detail, the content of the Museum's exhibits.
>
>This project requires very little technology which has not already been
>developed and demonstrated at WWW '94. Our very simple (moronic) VRML
>language (the specification for which is given at the VRML Forum WWW site)
>is capable, with very few extensions, of handling the expression of the
>entire space, with extensive linkages to WWW pages to be viewed from
>Mosaic or another Web/MIME viewer.
>

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Sam Gustman tel - (603) 646-4711
Computer Engineer email: samg@hanover-crrel.army.mil
QBE Entertainment, Inc. and
Amblin Studios
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