FULL BODY MOTION INTERFACES

181 7. FULL BODY MOTION INTERFACES While full-body motion is commonly viewed as the most challenging VE interface technology to be developed, it is important to note that some types of full-body motion are feasible with current technology. Consider first... More

181 7. FULL BODY MOTION INTERFACES While full-body motion is commonly viewed as the most challenging VE interface technology to be developed, it is important to note that some types of full-body motion are feasible with current technology. Consider first those cases where a user is passively moved through a VE in a vehicle. Here, the usual practice is to build a “cabin” that represents the physical vehicle and its controls, mount this cabin on a motion platform, and generate virtual window displays and motion commands in response to the user’s operation of the controls. These systems tend to be specialized to a particular application, for example, flight and tank simulators, and have been in use by the Department of Transportation, the Department of Defense, and the airline industry for many years. Indeed, cabin simulators represented the first practical VE applications. Recent years have seen the exploitation of this technology by the entertainment industry for interactive VE ad Less