Peter Cochrane's Hard Drive 1996
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VR - Just in Time

Managing a modern company can be like flying an airliner with more instrumentation than actually necessary. You can see the temperature of the coffee cups but your altitude and heading is anybody's guess. You are data rich and information poor, and VR has a big, and largely unrecognised, part to play. It is ideally suited to the representation of highly complex and data rich situations. Visualising the operational information of a company is far more edifying than a spread sheet.

We are very pictographic animals, able to absorb animated, 3D colour images at a phenomenal rate. It is unnatural for us to read and write, or interpret spreadsheets - we are soon overloaded by information in such formats. Moreover, many of our species have a natural inability to mentally translate 2D drawings (plans) into a 3D world (models). And yet, if information is presented in a natural 3D form, we are all inherently able to absorb and understand the equivalent of a 20 volume Encyclopaedia in about 15 seconds.

Designing all but the simplest modern products and artefacts on paper has now had its day. Moving to VR affords greater clarity and understanding, facilitates simulation and testing, and realises result, great savings. The need to drastically shorten time to market, and get products right first time, have brought this technology to the fore. Producing anything from a mobile phone through to an airline passenger terminal can see savings of over 30% in time and money through the use of VR. Visualising the final design in full (virtual) operation is a vital step in getting it right, but without the expense of an actual build.

Medical applications are developing rapidly with everything from body fly-throughs to operation simulations and animations. In this area, along with many others, it is the mixing of the real and virtual worlds where the greatest advantage probably lies. Combining Telepresence and VR allows surgeons the benefit of a real world view augmented by computer generated simulations. In recent trials surgeons have been able to stand 'one inside the other' at a distance to experience new surgical techniques for the first time, or receive reassurance during a first time solo operation. This technology is equally applicable to the repair of a computer, oil refinery, jet engine or heating plant. It offers a new and alternative approach to education - a metaphoric guide on the inside.

VR also offers significant potential for the teaching of science, mathematics and many other topics. It is principally a medium for direct experience and we can now step inside the atom or the molecule, fly a proton and experience fission, rather than just gaze at a set of complex equations. We can also dissect a virtual frog and operate a virtual microscope. For the first time we can see and feel the binding energies in the alignment process of a long chain molecule whilst simultaneously viewing the equations and associated graphical information. For many well-understood systems we can already view and handle mathematical functions and models in a new way. They no longer have to be artificially frozen in time and space by the limitation of paper, but can be alive with N-Dimensional interactivity.

It is interesting to reflect that only 50 years ago classes at schools and universities were commonly augmented by practical demonstrations on a laboratory bench that may still be in the front row today. Effectively that was VR 50 years ago - you just sat and watched someone else do it. Today much more can be done on the screen by everyone. It may be the tool we have been looking for - instant education and understanding - just in time.

Peter Cochrane holds the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at the University of Bristol. His home page is:
http://cochrane.org.uk