Virtual Reality (VR) has generated much excitement but little formal proof that it is useful. Because VR interfaces are difficult and expensive to build, the computer graphics community needs to be able to predict which applications will benefit from VR. In this paper, we show that users with a VR interface complete a search task faster than users with a stationary monitor and a hand-based input device. We placed users in the center of the virtual room shown in Figure 1 and told them to look for camouflaged targets. VR users did not do significantly better than desktop users. However, when asked to search the room and conclude if a target existed, VR users were substantially better at determining when they had searched the entire room. Desktop users took 41% more time, re-examining areas they had already searched. We also found a positive transfer of training from VR to stationary displays and a negative transfer of training from stationary displays to VR.

Alice is a rapid prototyping system used to create three dimensional graphics simulations like those seen in virtual reality applications. Alice uses an interpreted language called Python as its scripting language to implement user actions. This interactive development environment allows users to explore many more design options than is possible in a compiled language environment. The alpha version of Alice for Windows 95 is available for free over the intemet, with the beta release scheduled for August.

Article 3D magic lenses Share on Authors: John Viega User Interface Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Virginia, Thornton Hall, Charlottesville, VA User Interface Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Virginia, Thornton Hall, Charlottesville, VAView Profile , Matthew J. Conway User Interface Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Virginia, Thornton Hall, Charlottesville, VA User Interface Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Virginia, Thornton Hall, Charlottesville, VAView Profile , George Williams User Interface Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Virginia, Thornton Hall, Charlottesville, VA User Interface Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Virginia, Thornton Hall, Charlottesville, VAView Profile , Randy Pausch User Interface Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Virginia, Thornton Hall, Charlottesville, VA User Interface Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Virginia, Thornton Hall, Charlottesville, VAView Profile Authors Info & Claims UIST '96: Proceedings of the 9th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technologyNovember 1996 Pages 51–58https://doi.org/10.1145/237091.237098Online:01 November 1996Publication History 131citation1,529DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations131Total Downloads1,529Last 12 Months59Last 6 weeks8 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access

In this correspondence uniform decomposition procedures are extended to incompletely specified sequential machines. Any given Moore sequential machine is realized by interconnecting copies of a universal two-state component machine. The information processed by each component machine is represented by its corresponding partial mapping. When the sequential machine is incompletely specified, a reduction in the number of component machine copies is possible. The reduction is found by a uniform-cost search algorithm which finds a minimal cover on the set of partial mappings.