VR Screen Capture Images, 1995-1997

Ring Mountain and the Virtual Peninsula were virtual reality simulations that I worked on for Japan's NTT Soft InterSpace project, as a Sense8 consultant. NTT is Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation , the world's largest telecommunications company. Sense8 created the VR software that I used called World Tool Kit and World Up. The NTT Human Interface Laboratories were developing the InterSpace technology in Mill Valley, CA in 1995-96. The Ring Mountain simulation was the first VR project that I worked on.

 

This is a screen shot of the virtual Tower Records inside the Cybercampus. There are four avatars with TV screens. They could see and hear the other avatars in the virtual world. I think it was too far ahead of it's time for the average person. My work on the Cybercampus project involved the virtual Ring Mountain Open Space Preserve in Marin County, CA, not the scene above.

 

 

 Ring Mountain on Cybercampus, NTT

 

  

 

 

 The Village 

The first World Up Users Guide featured the Village simulation. Sense8 also used an image of the Village in several types of print advertising. The Village was my second VR simulation and my second one to appear worldwide. I was on a very lucky streak for a beginner!

    Virtual Peninsula for NTT Interspace Cyberspace

 

 

  

 

 
 Ford Detroit    Kongresshaus Convention Center, Zurich, Switzerland

 

A company asked me to appear in this advertisement in 1993 and even paid me for it.

"Look like you're in pain!", said the director.

At the time this ad was created I was busily pursuing my computer graphic career but hadn't actually worked in the field yet. (I'm not a programmer - they just made me look like one!) 1993 was back when "interactive multimedia" was really taking off. But just two years after this ad came out the multimedia job market was rapidly fading. But by then, in late 1995, I had discovered the lucrative field of real-time immersive virtual reality simulations. VR made everything else look positively boring. But where were the jobs? That was a definite problem which I never did solve despite my solid success in the field. Then out of the blue I was offered my current NASA job and that was the end of that. It was goodbye to the Bay Area's Multimedia Gulch and Silicon Valley and hello, Valles Marineris!

 

Virtual Reality Simulations Title

The 160th Century Worlds Tour, the Universe of Cordwainer Smith

160th Century Worlds Tour, the Universe of Cordwainer Smith Artwork

My favorite VR simulations were created for the Cordwainer Smith mega-project. Click on the image above. Many (but not all) of the images were captured from the virtual worlds I created from the science fiction stories of Dr. Paul Linebarger, aka Cordwainer Smith. In other words, he wrote incredible stories about very interesting planets of the far future and I "built" them.