My name is Eric Van Hensbergen, and I'm a student at the Rochester
Institute of Technology currently on an internship with Martin Marrietta
Information Systems Image Generator project. At the Rochester Institute
of Technology (RIT), I'm a member of an organization called Computer
Science House. As part of my involvement with that organization, I started
and now lead the Virtual Reality: Learning Systems Development (VR/LSD)
research group (a group of approximately 5 active programmers, 5 modellers,
and about 15-20 other members). This research group's primary focus is,
and has been for the past 2 years, the development of a public interactive
distributed virtual reality system to run on low-end hardware. Our prototype
software has been shown at the Montage '93 trade show (last summer in
Rochester, NY), as well as many smaller exhibitions. The libraries and
software that support this system are written in relatively platform-
independant C++. Graphic display clients have been developed for Xwindows
and Linux with versions being developed for DOS and Amigas. We have not
yet made an official release, but are currenly working on a 'releasable'
version of the software that we expect to be able to release by the end
of the year via anonymous FTP. Although the interactive nature of our
system seems to exceed the capabilities of the preliminary specifications
for VRML...I am interested in making our system compatable to some extent
with the VRML specification. I'm currently catching up on the literature
and message archives of VRML.
As a somewhat related note - I am currently away from school on an
internship with Martin Marietta Information Systems (in Daytona
Beach, FL). I work with the Image Generator project in the
Database Generation Systems area. The Image Generator project is
a photorealistic, real-time simulation system consisting of
hardware and software developed by Martin Marietta (this project
was formerly done by GE Aerospace). Its really an exciting project,
and has given me some real experience with high-end graphics and
simulation systems. My current task is the redesign of the underlying
data model to C++ classes.
I will be attending SIGGRAPH '94, and would look forward to a VRML
BOF meeting. Because of other meetings I with to attend, I would
prefer a Monday, Thursday, or Friday meeting (definately not Wednesday).
I look forward to reading more about your developments and attempting
to make a contribution. Looks like some good solid work so far.
-Eric Van Hensbergen
(hensberg@sunny.dab.ge.com)
Computer Science House
Rochester Insitute of Technology
P.S. From my reading so far, there is not yet an FTP site for VRML
information. If you want, I may be able to arrange some space
on our (Computer Science House) anonymous ftp site (ftp.csh.rit.edu).
Mail me if anyone is interested in this and I'll see what I can
set-up.