Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, September 20, 1994 TAG: 9409220035
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
That's the conclusion of the National Research Council, which on Monday detailed a large gap between the expectations for virtual reality and the machinery that will make the futuristic concept possible.
In virtual reality, people use computer programs and imaging hardware to experience a different place as if they were there.
``With the limited technology that is currently available, there is a tradeoff between realistic images and real-time interactivity,'' said Nathaniel Durlach of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was chairman of the NRC study.
In fact, only the entertainment industry is heavily pushing virtual reality, from interactive TV to three-dimensional video games, the NRC scientists concluded. But relying on that work for virtual reality of good enough quality to be used in medicine and other fields will be folly, they said.
``In entertainment, it doesn't have to be very good, it just has to be real-time interactive,'' explained NRC's Anne Mavor, who directed the study. ``But if you use this to operate on a person, you would want the image to be pretty clear.''
People are already using some aspects of virtual reality: Remote-controlled robots take scientists to the ocean floor. Rural doctors beam live pictures of patients to specialists for help in diagnosis and even surgery from hundreds of miles away.
But the NRC drew a more intriguing picture: A medical student touches a beating human heart and cuts it open. A program that Superman would call X-ray vision lets her watch how well the heart pumps in an ordinary person going about his daily business. She performs surgery using a telerobot that doesn't have the hand tremors of mere mortals and can move with the heartbeat so patients don't need their hearts stopped for surgery.
The options are limitless, from exploring outer space more cheaply to developing new manufacturing processes, Monday's report said.
But scientists lack the technology to make such long-awaited innovation a reality anytime soon - unless the government starts a major program to push this stagnating field along, the NRC said.
The major European nations and Japan already have national initiatives pushing virtual reality, the scientists noted.
Here, about 25 universities, 15 federal agencies and more than 100 companies are working on different aspects of virtual reality, but most are in the early research stages and are very unorganized, Mavor said.
A single government group to help fund and organize the work could put virtual reality back on track, the report said. For example, such research now focuses almost solely on vision, not touch or other sensations.
by CNB