[AG-TECH] Access Grid Seminar

[Lee Margetts]

*** Apologies for Cross-posting ***

"Virtual Environments and Interactive 3D: A Reflection Spanning 20 Years"

Prof. Bob Stone, Director, Human Interface Technologies Team, University of Birmingham and Research Director, Human Factors Integration Defence Technology Centre.

Friday, 28th April 2006, 1400 - 1500 British Summer Time (1300 - 1400 UTC)

ESNW Access Grid, Room 1.10, Kilburn Building

The late 1980s were marked by the births of what were to become two slowly converging fields of endeavour, one ultimately becoming the ?saviour? of the other. Virtual Reality ? the ?louder?, more dominant sibling of the new era in Information Technology and interactive media ? captured the imagination of a global audience by promising a brave new world characterised by immersive displays, wearable interfaces, body augmentation and online rich sensorial virtual worlds. In stark contrast, the gaming community, for a long time snubbed by its VR relative as being a pursuit not worthy of even the most basic of acknowledgement, entered the interactive 3D world without a murmur, yet delivered a foundation upon which many of today?s key graphics developments are based. As the years progressed, VR ? once the firm favourite ? evolved to experience a turbulent adolescence and then faded rapidly into premature (but predictable) obscurity. Over the same time course, the 3D gaming market gradually increased in strength, promoting immersion through content, as opposed to technology. Today, PC and console games represent (arguably) the most potent driving force behind affordability and innovation in graphics hardware to date, delivering usable, accessible content generation software tools and impressive rendering engines for ?serious? applications. Prof. Stone will present his own personal view of the highs and lows of the last 20 years and where lessons can be learned to help ensure the growing serious gaming community does not make the same mistakes of its VR counterpart.

Access Grid Information

Anyone wishing to view a seminar via Access Grid should note the following:

Virtual venue: University of Manchester (1.10)
Jabber room: uom1.10 at conference.mcs.anl.gov
IGPix: roberts.agsc.man.ac.uk/igpix/uom110

For technical assistance regarding the Access Grid, please contact support at agsc.ja.net

If possible, please let us know in advance if your site intends to join a seminar.

Further Information

http://www.mc.manchester.ac.uk/research/seminars/

Best regards

Dr Lee Margetts
Senior Consultant
High Performance Computing
University of Manchester

http://www.sve.man.ac.uk/General/Staff/margetts
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: seminar_stone.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 96419 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.mcs.anl.gov/pipermail/ag-tech/attachments/20060412/8724cc9f/attachment.pdf>