Product Description: A book and disk package which lets the user enter the world of virtual reality and even create his or her own personal digital dimension. Demo programs include a 3-D simulation that puts the user inside a robot which travels through a computer-generated city.

Virtual reality was originally used to describe a specific technology, comprising of a pair of goggles, with TV screens for eyepieces and a sensor for monitoring orientation and position. With the goggles on, the wearer sees a computer-generated image on the screens. When the head moves, the image on the screen moves correspondingly, thus giving the sense of being in a "real" space. From a refinement of arcade game and flight simulator technology, virtual reality is travelling towards complete immersion in "artificial" space, to the point where the subject is not just sensing an artificial world but is part of it. In "Virtual Worlds", Benjamin Woolley examines the reality of virtual reality. He looks at the dramatic intellectual and cultural upheavals that gave birth to it, at the hype that surrounds it, at the people who have promoted it, and at the dramatic implications of its development. Vitural reality is not simply a technology, it is a way of thinking created and promoted by a group of technologists and thinkers that sees itself as creating our future. "Virtual Worlds" reveals the politics and culture of these virtual realists, and examines whether they are creating reality, or losing their grasp of it.

An introduction to virtual reality covers every aspect of the revolutionary new technology and its many possible applications, from computer games to air traffic control. Original. National ad/promo.

Product Description: This survey analyses the media explosion. It describes the background to the convergence of media which is taking place, and discusses the pioneers of the new media arts and technologies. It examines the main building blocks of hypermedia: words, images, sounds and movement through space and time...read more

Product Description: Virtual Reality and the Exploration of Cyberspace is an introduction that covers not only the nuts and bolts of this emerging technology but also seeks to provide context by examining the social, political, and business implications of virtual reality...read more

Product Description: Computers have dramatically altered life in the late twentieth century. Today we can draw on worldwide computer links, speeding up communications by radio, newspapers, and television. Ideas fly back and forth and circle the globe at the speed of electricity...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This collection examines a broad range of practical applications of virtual reality, from entertainment and corporate planning to teleconferencing and computer-supported co-operative work. It explains the capabilities of some systems.

Product Description: A completely revised and updated edition of the leading scientific guide to virtual reality and virtual environments. Filling the gaps in available literature, The Science of Virtual Reality and Virtual Environments provides a comprehensive tutorial and reference to VR, drawing together previously inaccessible information into a single sourc...read more

Product Description: Presents detailed technical coverage of the storage, coding and compression methods essential for building multimedia systems. Specifies major frameworks and techniques necessary for creating interactive interfaces. Concentrates on practical leading edge methods that can readily be used in a wide range of applications and features illustrations to highlight these techniques...read more

A straight-forward guide written for anyone interested in the rapidly advancing virtual reality technology. This guide includes no sensationalism or technical jargon and is therefore easy to understand and follow. It considers the state of virtual reality at present, including its commercial uses, future applications and impact. The Primer includes descriptions of the things needed to create a virtual reality world: hardware, software, networking capabilities and audio/video requirements; how virtual reality brings together other popular computer technologies; a detailed look at VR's current and potential applications; coverage of advances in R&D, available products and current investors and a detailed glossary of more than 200 terms.

A book-and-software package allows readers to explore and build virtual worlds while learning about the latest virtual reality innovations. Original.

Product Description: Virtual reality is a computer-generated, three-dimensional scene within which a user can move and interact with objects. It is becoming popular both to enable the visualization of ideas and as a direct representation/simulation of complex objects and interactions...read more

An introduction to virtual reality explores the latest technological developments and software that have made this new innovation possible. Original.

Product Description: Many Windows programmers prefer Visual Basic to C++ because it's less expensive, easier to learn and based on the world's most widely used programming language. It's to the emerging market of Visual Basic developers that Lee Adams directs this guide to visualization graphics programming for Windows...read more

Product Description: "Virtual Reality Excursions: With Programs in C" makes the current applications accessiable to the PC user. The authors have developed software that enables readers to create their own virtual environments. The book is written at a level acceptable to researchers and academicians, as well as to computer enthusiasts...read more

Explores a host of cutting-edge and entertaining topics, including animation, sound, movie-making, graphics, ResEdit, Apple Script, and HyperCard and includes a CD-ROM loaded with software to be used in a Mac. Original.

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Product Description: Leading international developers of interaction and image display techniques offer indispensable insight into how the two are being synthesized in a mutually beneficial way. Emphasizes practical cutting-edge methods which can be readily used in a wide variety of applications, to wit: providing a graphical user interface for collaborative computer systems; creating image databases, visualization, animation and virtual reality systems and other simulations...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)