Beyond Virtual Reality:Local-Loop
Service Area a.i, Ponton European Media Lab
Keywords: user interface, social space, 3D, Virtual Reality,
electronic games,
interactive TV, Local-Loop, a 3D user and communication interface
What do you see when you look at a computer screen? A dull, boring and uninspiring collection of unrelated objects, a desktop.
What do you see when you look at TV screen? Attention catching images, beautiful people, a scene, objects in a complex relation
following some plot. What can we learn? A new user interface is necessary understanding the events on a computer screen as an interactive film.
This includes a space metaphor with individual camera view, user representation, light, architecture, movement
and dramaturgy.
During work and leisure people spend several hours daily in front of the screen. The screen becomes a window into an electronic world,
a virtual reality and an important part of their lifes, a social space in which they would like to experience themselves.
This experience includes
- communication with others, as people need people to relate to,
- having influence on the electronic world,
- having an individual viewpoint and
- being able to design the social space.
In addition to the well known and understood systems of TV and computer, new applications and machinery find their way to the market that
allow and need new user interfaces in order to be able to use them.
Within a few years, window, mouse and icon have replaced the text oriented user interface. This can be seen as the step from the one dimensional text string to the second dimension. Because our surrounding real enviroment is three dimensional, it can be a
ssumed that a space oriented user interface allows a natural and intuitive work.
The user interface unifies
- a shared workspace, allowing people to cooperate in the same electronic space with groupware,
- a network and
- seemless multimedia communication between users
in an abstract metaphor, using simple and effective models and symbols.In order to create an attractive user interface, experiences from the field of
electronic games
are being employed. Games allow for complex and inspiring environments without manuals because they include elements of
- challenge,
- fantasy and
- curiosity.
A system is demonstrated with a user interface for the PC and UNIX which understands the screen as a window into a three
dimensional world which the following attributes:
- several hundred users can access the world by modem and Internet,
- the user has an individual camera view into the world
- the user has an individual representation in the world
- the user can design the world by bringing in objects and manipulating them
- multimedia communication is possible in realtime and delayed with objects, using text, video, music, drawing and speech.
The system has been employed for an interactive TV show (Service Area a.i. at Ars Electronica, June 1994), forming the
communication network for viewers. Poets act as mediators between the network and the TV viewer by living in the network, translating their experience
into the language of TV and moderating a realtime open discussion between viewers.
Local-Loop is a two years project. It is constantly online, allowing immediate feedback from users. The goal of the project is to
create a new user interface, to help the easy use of telecommunication services and to create and observe an electronic culture.
Ponton background: Ponton is an independent research institute located in Hannover, Germany. Since 1989 a staff of now 19 conceptionists,
designers, programmers, musicians and filmmakers research telematic culture, visualisation of networks, and technically mediated communication between people.
Ponton is funded by the Niedersaechsische Ministerium fuer Wissenschaft und Kultur, the industry and by projects.
Picture: The user interface for PC's with a 90 degree zoom lens (normally in color). 3 Users in a chat situation on the forum "Konsum".
"Jeannie" has the shape of a pyramid while "Scara" and "Scarabeus" look like starwars fighter planes. Scarabeus sends live video. In the background are different
forums and scalelike markings on the horizon. Objects can be created, deposited and picked up again. All actions are direct point-and-click style using a mouse.
Intelligent, object-sensitive menus can pop up in space according to the possibilities of an object.
Organisation: Ponton European Media Art Lab, Lister Strasse 17, 30163 Hannover, Germany, tel +49-511-627032, fax +49-511-621799
Benjamin Heidersberger, e-mail:benjamin@ponton.uni-hannover.de
Salvatore Vanasco, e-mail: vanasco@ponton.uni.hannover.de
telepolis@mlm.extern.lrz-muenchen.de