Emotisims are Dr. Sievaahdra Jesstar Aaouen’s creations. Their emotional and artistic content are what set them apart from more utilitarian virtual reality. His secret agenda in the use of this technology is to allow him to test simmers for multimindedness ability, and to train them to develop those skills. The supporting technology is like "spirit guides", so Siv is not surprised by the concept when they actually come to him.
The emotisims depend on some of the following supporting technology.
1. HVCLs ... to inject "thoughts" into the simmer’s mind ... images are projected onto the retinas of the simmers ... sounds are projected into their ears ...
2. TheBook ... already has lots of data/info for the scenes and the excursions ... genealogy ...
3. Hypersuits ... inject drugs and hormones (through game interface adapters) to induce some feelings and emotions, such as fear by increasing the adrenaline ... heat and cool the body to simulate weather (also supported by the studio) ... and smells ... shoes adjust to give feel of terrain ... can suggest movements by appropriate tactile feedback, but still need the omni-directional treadmills ...
4. Omni-directional treadmills ... see YouTube, at least two versions already working ... like an array of arrays, it is a treadmill of treadmills ... one seems very large, the other more manageable. ... if we use moving tiles, then we can vary the heights of the tiles to generate actual terrain ... there could be some Computational Geometry here!
5. "Scenery" ... collapsed into the simstage walls. Sheets of nanomaterial for walls and trees etc. .... they unfold as the simmer moves towards them ... they are strong enough, stretched between the floor and the ceiling and reinforced by magnetic? fields to give the impression of solid walls ... the surfaces are "painted" by using algorithms similar to those in computer graphics ... Images are projected onto the bodies of the robots ... onto the theater props ...
6. "Props" ... include robots and furniture ... limited, but the simmer is directed towards the real props and away from images without props ... some come from the walls, some from the floor and some from the ceiling ... Robots/animatronics ... the larger ships’ simtheaters have robo horses for horseback riding and milk wagon pulling ... Riding on the milkwagon can be accomplished by climbing fake steps and having the studio provide an actual seat.
7. Excursions ... interesting details can be explored ...
There are several formats for using the emotisims. Personal/Private: contax only plus the hypersuits ... SimPods. Shared: multi-player ... take turns being the hero ... others play supporting roles, and can see the hero act. Small theater/home theater: can move around ... like a holodeck ... some robots. Large theater/museums/Disneylands: robots ... scenery ... equipment, like an interactive museum ... can rent real costumes, like the old time photos on the boardwalk ... multiplayer ...
Rules of play:
1. Simmer observes the action from "outside" the scene
2. Simmer observes the action as one of the supporting characters
3. Simmer observes the action inside the main character’s head
4. Simmer controls the main character
5. Simmer explores the extra details of the scenery
There are six emotisims in the book.
0. Mars: ... Harry Smith the policeman ... railing, bridge planks ... Sievaahdra’s library ...
1. Jog: ... starts in the basement ... trees, only some are props ... animals are digital only ... gets a real drink of water at the end ... supporting characters: old man, old dog, athletes at YS, truck driver, FoM members saying hello, horseback riders, FM
2. Ocean City: ... again, a straight path ... lots of building fronts ... lots of people, mostly fake, several robots ... railing ... benches ... bowling alley perch ... supporting characters: Mr. Brinton, bowlers, boardwalk crowds, fortune teller, book store owner, Jack Kelly, David Ray Metzger, Sally Metzger, Alma Metzger, soldiers at shooting gallery, FM
3. Shipyard: ... back steps ... climb on wagon ... Tildie is a robot ... supporting characters: Katie Metzger, David Metzger, man at loading dock, policeman, ship worker
4. Graveyard: ... water ... raft ... poles ... Lt.’s horse is the same robot ... cannon ... gravestones ... supporting characters: dogs, brothers, Lt., soldiers
5. Tree: ... cabin ... forest ... tree climb ... pot ... supporting characters: Indians ... FM
The colonization fleet is prepared for high tech development of the moons of our solar system, with continued contact with the rest of mankind. Instead each ship ends up on its own! So the contract to place simtheaters aboard the ships as simple entertainment, unexpectedly turns out to be essential to the survival of the human species because of the skills they reinforce. They go back in time, to more primitive civilization. They emphasize traits needed for man to start over on new planets. A lot of information is included in the excursions, and in how the sim was made.
1. Jog - physical stamina
2. Ocean City - marriage, family, children, crystal set
3. Shipyard - master/app, jobs, animals, shipbuilding, diseases and doctors, old sailing ships, steam, brass foundary
4. Graveyard - plantations and farming, birth and death, travel with horses, getting along with Indians, hunting - deer on ice, weaving clothing
5. Tree - new frontiers, not getting along with Indians, hunting, hides and tanning
6. Hunting, farming, transport, wagons, horses, steam, weapons and self defense, blacksmith, ferryman, cooper, butcher, baker, candlesticks, navigation, clockmaking, communications, printing, carpentry, horseback riding, ...
So ... how close are we to doing this?
Stage actors have attempted this emotional involvement for centuries, and screen actors have continued with much more technological support. They experience emotions and insight during the process and present some of that to the audience. But the audience is only observing. Historic re-enactments are an interesting version of "emotisim", usually on a much grander scale however. And then we have the science and engineering of virtual reality itself, much of which has filtered out to the masses in the form of electronic games.
As far as fictional references go, the Starship Enterprise’s holodeck is the prime example, but I also remember Westworld with Yul Brenner. I’ll add others here as I remember or discover them.
My research notes contain the following references, all quite old now, so I will look to update this ...
True Depth Visualization Technologies (TDV) 12/11/02 ... take the internet into the third dimension, a new 3-D web portal ... portal visitors must purchase the $99 TDV3D Viewing System, which consists of hw, sw, and electronic viewing glasses. The glasses electronically flash and shutter approx 150 times/sec, synchronizing closely with the refresh rate of a monitor to provide an immersive 3-D experience. ...entertainment, education, and e-commerce. Www.tdv3d.com ... coverage of fashion shows, sporting events, and other spectacles ...
Creating the Visible Man in 3D 6/8/04 Remember the scene in Star Wars where R2-D2 projects a holographic image of Princess Leah? Actuality Systems has announced new software for its Perspecta volumetric display, designed to help plan surgery and other medical procedures. The system takes MRI images and other scans and displays them as one solid image that can be viewed in 360 degrees. Actuality’s display relies on a plastic disk that rotates at 730 rpm inside a 20in bell-jar style glass dome. The base of the housing holds a projector that uses Texas Instruments’ micromirror DLP display engine. As the disc spins, complex mathematical computations place each voxel - a volumetric pixel - at the correct point in 3D space. The result is a hologram-like image that you don’t need goggles to see. So instead of viewing a series of scanned images, doctors can view them all reassembled into a single 3D image. Perspecta displays moving images as well. The Perspecta system is already used in oil and gas exploration and in air traffic control to provide real-time info. It’ll run you $40,000.
Televison The Leaps Off the Screen 7/3/05 ... the photon hackers of Deep Light are showing me the future of media. ... no glasses ... seeing a 3D image with the naked eye ... HD3D hits 1280 lines of resolution and counting ... multiple "blades" of video enable one screen to show different programs to different viewers at the same time. ... live 3D chat with the couple who came over to dinner the other night ... stereoscopic imaging ... Sharp has sold three million 3D cell phones in Japan since 2003 ... and has just released a laptop that toggles between 2D and 3D views ... Adrian Travis ... time multiplexing. Suppose you were to pass an image through a lens and open a shutter when it emerged to guide the image out at a precise angle. And suppose you could do that for 30 images a second through each of 10 angles. Like fanning out a deck of cards, you’d beam out 10 angles of your images so quickly that, no matter where the viewer was in relation to the screen, each of his eyes would see its own angle of live video. Voila: natural 3D. Movies need 24 frames/sec. Video needs 30 frames/sec. Time multiplexing needs 300 frames/sec. ... hit game titles like Halo 2 and Spiderman are already programmed in 3D ... and both Xbox360 and Playstation 3 use platform standards that support 3D. ... we can synthetically create the 3D data that’s lost when you film with a 2D camera ...
Exoskeleton (University of Utah)At the U Utah, an operator can strap their arm into a large 50 pound exoskeleton developed to deliver force feedback. The operator's arm and hand can move in 10 different ways at the same time. The computer constantly changes the force output of the motors and hydraulic actuators on the exoskeleton so that it can feel essentially weightless. However, when the operator touches something, the virtual forces become actual forces felt through the exoskeleton. They could feel the increasing resistance of compressing a virtual spring or their arm would stop hard when it reached a virtual wall.
TiNi Alloy Tactile Feedback System Using shape-memory alloys, or memory metals, the TiNi Alloy TFS provides temperature tactile feedback. This feedback is displayed by heating the appropriate memory metal element positioned on the hand (probably in a glove). This product is still in research and is not commercially available.
Where are we now???