The Chronicle of Higher Education
Date: February 23, 1996
Section: Information Technology
Page: A21
Reprinted by permission.
By David L. Wilson
The Internet is poised to make another evolutionary leap.
Within the next year, three-dimensional models will be commonplace in cyberspace, allowing users to examine images on a computer screen from any angle, to "walk" through a model of a building, and even to get a taste of what it would be like to live in a universe where normal physical laws do not apply.
The technology is called V.R.M.L., for Virtual Reality Modeling Language. It lets programmers build three-dimensional images that can be quickly transmitted over the Internet onto an ordinary computer screen and manipulated by a user.
While still in its infancy, the new tool has already given rise to hundreds of home-grown projects. Experts say V.R.M.L. could become ubiquitous, once developers settle on a new, more advanced V.R.M.L. programming language standard later this year.
Just as the development of the World-Wide Web led to a drastic transformation of the Internet, V.R.M.L. is expected to redefine cyberspace.
Some, however, fear that the new language and the hardware and knowledge required to program with it will re-create barriers between technology experts and non-experts, which the World-Wide Web helped to break down. But many others say that adding a third dimension to the Internet will make it easier for people to work, learn, and communicate.
Daniel H. Robertson, assistant scientist and manager of the computational facility in the chemistry department at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, says V.R.M.L. can help many students get a better grasp of the material. "Textbooks are only in two dimensions, but reality is three dimensions," he says. "I think we're getting close to a time when V.R.M.L. is going to be used on a regular basis."
Mr. Robertson is experimenting with V.R.M.L. models that let students fly through models of molecules, such as Carbon 60, better known as buckminsterfullerene.
V.R.M.L. was created to build three-dimensional spaces within the World-Wide Web. Such models can be examined by any user with access to a computer and an Internet connection. Until recently, V.R.M.L. ran almost exclusively on sophisticated, expensive computer workstations, but today many V.R.M.L. models can run on the high-end computers that can be found on desks throughout academe, such as Power Macintoshes, or computers with Pentium central-processing units.
To examine a V.R.M.L. model, users need special software, much of which is available for no charge on the Internet. (One popular site for such programs is the San Diego Supercomputer Center at http://www.scsc.edu/vrml/) Some programs are designed to stand alone, while others can be used with standard World-Wide Web "browser" programs, such as Netscape.
Looking at a V.R.M.L. model does not require special eyeglasses or headsets used in other types of virtual-reality systems. While it lacks the feeling of immersion that such systems provide, V.R.M.L. is less cumbersome and expensive.
By pointing a mouse on the upper half of the image, a user can zoom in closer, as though walking forward with a camera. Eventually the user can pass right through the image. Clicking on the lower half of the image zooms backwards, and edging the cursor left or right moves in those directions. Holding down the shift key enables the camera to pan and tilt.
Developers say the technology has the potential to revolutionize the way many things are done in academe, from teaching chemistry to presenting data.
Sebastian Heath, a graduate student studying classical archaeology at the University of Michigan, is working with the Pylos Regional Archaeological Project: Internet Edition, which is using the network to disseminate quickly the results of research into the history of western Messenia in Greece. Mr. Heath used V.R.M.L. tools to build three-dimensional graphs showing how pottery shards are distributed at the excavation site.
The graphs show the number of shards recovered, the century from which each piece comes, and a scale showing the likely range of error for such estimates. Designing such a graph in three dimensions, Mr. Heath says, gives the researcher a better idea of the reliability of the data.
"In the past, the need to work in two dimensions has led to compromises," he says. "Using three dimensions doesn't answer some of the uncertainties we have about the data, but it does make it clear to the researcher looking at the data that these uncertainties exist."
The V.R.M.L. technology is not owned by any company, but was developed on an ad hoc basis by hundreds of programmers around the world. A new V.R.M.L. standard will soon be adopted.
Despite widespread enthusiasm for the technology, it still has some hurdles to clear before it becomes ubiquitous on the Internet. At present, the V.R.M.L. browsers are buggy and prone to frequent crashes. V.R.M.L. also requires a powerful desktop computer for adequate performance on the simplest applications. Serious scientific work still requires workstations that cost $10,000 or more. Another potential barrier to widespread use is that about 10 per cent of people suffer from symptoms of motion sickness when working in such environments.
People who would like to create V.R.M.L. worlds say they are much harder to build than a simple Web page. Billy Barron, a new-technology specialist at the University of Texas at Dallas, says his institution is looking at the possibility of developing V.R.M.L. tools for use in a variety of disciplines, but for now the technology simply requires too many resources.
"Putting graphics up on the Web is incredibly easy, but the manual labor involved in designing V.R.M.L. sites is substantial," says Mr. Barron. "You're not going to see a lot of complex things until new tools come along that make designing V.R.M.L. faster and easier. There are vendors out there that are starting to come out with better design tools, but until that happens, V.R.M.L. is not ready for prime time."
Some worry that widespread use of tools like V.R.M.L. will destroy what they see as one of the Internet's greatest assets: the ease with which it allows nearly anyone to become an information provider. Text-based communication is profoundly democratic, argues Bruce Umbaugh, assistant professor of philosophy at Webster University in St. Louis.
"V.R.M.L. is inclusive because it's vivid and, done at all well, it's mindlessly easy to navigate. At least for some users, it's easier to interpret than text, for instance."
Mr. Umbaugh argues that a form of virtual reality has existed on the Internet for several years. Commonly referred to as MOOs, for Multiple-user Object-Oriented environments, the systems describe objects using only text. Users "enter" a MOO and can move around and manipulate the environment simply by typing commands. In many MOOs, visitors can easily modify the environment themselves, creating new objects or altering the existing objects.
"I think V.R.M.L. is likely to be exclusive because certainly it will be harder to construct a three-dimensional world than to convey information with text," says Mr. Umbaugh. "One needs to be proficient with very demanding tools to create an effective V.R.M.L. site, but even somebody who isn't terribly literate can describe, at least in a limited way, an environment using words. In a MOO, you don't need to be very sophisticated."
Mr. Umbaugh fears that users might ignore sites that lack V.R.M.L.'s glitz.
"One of the most important things about the Net is that it has become a medium that lets anybody become a content provider, instead of just a passive consumer of information that other people have developed. And that would be much harder in a medium where V.R.M.L. is the standard."
Mr. Umbaugh says words themselves have power, and the dramatic explosion in the use of things like electronic mail has led people to rediscover that. "Think about how captivating a good novel is, or a poem, or a love letter. You can do those kinds of things scratching a stick in the dirt. Creating V.R.M.L. worlds requires reasonably sophisticated computers; creating extremely compelling V.R.M.L. worlds will likely require supercomputers. How many people will have access to those?
"But I can write well enough, all by myself, to give a really good description using text. We need to make sure, when we're getting caught up in this new technology, that we don't use it to marginalize people who can only communicate with their words."