Special Interest Group for Virtual Reality

by Jason Hartman
SigVR is the Special Interest Group for Virtual Reality. Our group welcomes all walks of life who have an interest in exploring or experimenting with virtual reality. For those of you unfamiliar with VR, it can be defined as a wholly immersive environment, in which the user actually feels and thinks he or she is in a computer generated environment.

The main project of SigVR over the years has been, and will be, the development of PeLViS, Personal Low-Cost Virtual Reality System. Currently, PeLViS is composed of a head-mounted display (two portable Casio TV's and VGA to NTSC signal converters), two PC's (386's or higher with a serial port), and software written by SigVR. This year we hope to develop head tracking using a gyroscope, improve the head-mounted display, and add new features to the software.

PeLViS will be displayed at EOH this year, and this means we need a virtual world. Recently we decided on a virtual sandbox with you scaled down to the size of an action figure. Actual design of the world has not been laid out, but the plans currently include - yes you guessed it - a sand castle with a moat and a drawbridge, a matchbox car to drive around, and a hidden treasure you can find.

SigVR usually meets every Thursday at 7:30 pm in 1330 DCL. For more information or to confirm our next meeting date send email to sigvr@acm.uiuc.edu. Also check out our web page: http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/sigvr.


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Last updated 2 February 1996