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VR TutorialsWant to learn VR? Here are some VR tutorials to choose from:
Here are some books from Amazon.com:
Disclosure: Products details and descriptions provided by Amazon.com. Our company may receive a payment if you purchase products from them after following a link from this website.
W.W. Norton & Co.
Paperback (496 pages)
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"I recommend this book to you with an earnestness that I have seldom felt for any collection of historic texts," writes William Gibson in his foreword. Tracing the fertile series of collaborations between arts and sciences throughout the twentieth century, Randall Packer and Ken Jordan present the often overlooked history behind multimedia—the interfaces, links, and interactivity we all take for granted today. "Many of the papers that had profound impact upon my development—to say nothing of the entire industry—are here," raves Donald A. Norman, author of The Invisible Computer. In "an evocative whirlwind tour through 100 years of work" (Wired), Packer and Jordan bring together an "historically significant" (Slashdot) collection of the groundbreaking visions of scientists like Vannevar Bush, Douglas Englebart, and Norbert Wiener, and artists like John Cage, Nam June Paik, and William Gibson. Their insightful explanations of the core concepts behind multimedia provide historical context that "reads like a Western civ of modern media" (Film/Tape World). |
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By Grigore C. Burdea
Wiley-IEEE Press
Hardcover (464 pages)
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A groundbreaking Virtual Reality textbook is now even better Virtual reality is a very powerful and compelling computer application by which humans can interface and interact with computer-generated environments in a way that mimics real life and engages all the senses. Although its most widely known application is in the entertainment industry, the real promise of virtual reality lies in such fields as medicine, engineering, oil exploration and the military, to name just a few. Through virtual reality scientists can triple the rate of oil discovery, pilots can dogfight numerically-superior "bandits," and surgeons can improve their skills on virtual (rather than real) patients. This Second Edition of the first comprehensive technical book on the subject of virtual reality provides updated and expanded coverage of the technology—where it originated, how it has evolved, and where it is going. The authors cover all of the latest innovations and applications that are making virtual reality more important than ever before, including: - Coverage on input and output interfaces including touch and force feedback
- Computing architecture (with emphasis on the rendering pipeline and task distribution)
- Object modeling (including physical and behavioral aspects)
- Programming for virtual reality
- An in-depth look at human factors issues, user performance, and
- sensorial conflict aspects of VR
- Traditional and emerging VR applications
The new edition of Virtual Reality Technology is specifically designed for use as a textbook. Thus it includes definitions, review questions, and a Laboratory Manual with homework and programming assignments. The accompanying CD-ROM also contains video clips that reinforce the topics covered in the textbook. The Second Edition will serve as a state-of-the-art resource for both graduate and undergraduate students in engineering, computer science, and other disciplines. GRIGORE C. BURDEA is a professor at Rutgers-the State University of New Jersey, and author of the book Force and Touch Feedback for Virtual Reality, also published by Wiley. PHILIPPE COIFFET is a Director of Research at CNRS (French National Scientific Research Center) and Member of the National Academy of Technologies of France. He authored 20 books on Robotics and VR translated into several languages. |
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By Howard Rheingold
Simon & Schuster
Paperback (416 pages)
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Imagine being able to "walk" into your computer and interact with any program you create. It sounds like science fiction, but it's science fact. Surgeons now rehearse operations on computer-generated "virtual" patients, and architects "walk through" virtual buildings while the actual structures are still in blueprints. In Virtual Reality, Howard Rheingold takes us to the front lines of this revolutionary new technology that creates computer-generated worlds complete with the sensations of touch and motion, and explores its impact on everything from entertainment to particle physics. |
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By Jennifer Whyte
Architectural Press
Paperback (160 pages)
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This is the first text to focus on virtual reality applications for design of the built environment. This guide explores the use of virtual reality at the practical level. It provides an overview of industrial applications of virtual reality and explores relevant scientific research.
Virtual Reality in the Built Environment is a guide to the practical uses of virtual design, construction, and management. Providing an overview of industrial applications for virtual reality and exploring relevant research, this book is an accessible and innovative resource for architects, designers and built environment professionals--bridging the gap between technological vision and current practice.
Author Jennifer Whyte shows how interactive, spatial, real-time technologies can radically improve modelling and communication of ideas, enable partcipation in the design process, and facilitated planning and management at the urban scale. The experience of lead users of virtual reality is used as the basis for understanding its promise and problems. Explanations of the underlying principles of this exciting interactive medium, a discussion of the cognitive, technical and organizational issues it raises, and international case studies illustrating practical applications are all included in this guide.
The author also provides a companion web site which provides online learning materials, including test-yourself questions, virtual reality models, and links to relevant sites, making it a valuable design resource and a stimulus for innovation.
* Informative guide for professionals and students conducting computer-based design work
* Accessible and innovative resource for every field of construction with a companion website for online learning
* Bridge the gap between technological fantasy and current practice with case studies from Britain, Japan, USA and Australia |
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By Brenda K., Ph.D. Wiederhold
American Psychological Association (APA)
Hardcover (225 pages)
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Virtual Reality Therapy for Anxiety Disorders explores how the latest virtual reality interventions can be used to treat patients with anxiety disorders. Virtual reality therapy enables the patient to experience a realistic, yet carefully controlled exposure to an anxiety-provoking scenario, in the therapist's own office. The authors provide discussion of virtual reality therapy for specific disorders including panic disorder and agoraphobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, fear of flying or driving, claustrophobia, arachnophobia, and fear of medical procedures. Tips and caveats are provided, making this book important reading for therapists interested in exploring an exciting new therapy modality. |
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By Marie-Laure Ryan
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Paperback (416 pages)
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Is there a significant difference in attitude between immersion in a game and immersion in a movie or novel? What are the new possibilities for representation offered by the emerging technology of virtual reality? As Marie-Laure Ryan demonstrates in Narrative as Virtual Reality, the questions raised by new, interactive technologies have their precursors and echoes in pre-electronic literary and artistic traditions. Formerly a culture of immersive ideals--getting lost in a good book, for example--we are becoming, Ryan claims, a culture more concerned with interactivity. Approaching the idea of virtual reality as a metaphor for total art, Narrative as Virtual Reality applies the concepts of immersion and interactivity to develop a phenomenology of reading. Ryan's analysis encompasses both traditional literary narratives and the new textual genres made possible by the electronic revolution of the past few years, such as hypertext, interactive movies and drama, digital installation art, and computer role-playing games. Interspersed among the book's chapters are several "interludes" that focus exclusively on either key literary texts that foreshadow what we now call "virtual reality," including those of Baudelaire, Huysmans, Ignatius de Loyola, Calvino, and science-fiction author Neal Stephenson, or recent efforts to produce interactive art forms, like the hypertext "novel" Twelve Blue, by Michael Joyce, and I'm Your Man, an interactive movie. As Ryan considers the fate of traditional narrative patterns in digital culture, she revisits one of the central issues in modern literary theory--the opposition between a presumably passive reading that is taken over by the world a text represents and an active, deconstructive reading that imaginatively participates in the text's creation. |
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By Michael Heim
Oxford University Press, USA
Paperback (208 pages)
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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. And just around the corner lurks full-blown virtual reality, in which we will be able to immerse ourselves in a computer simulation not only of the actual physical world, but of any imagined world. As we begin to move in and out of a computer-generated world, Michael Heim asks, how will the way we perceive our world change? In The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality, Heim considers this and other philosophical issues of the Information Age. With an eye for the dark as well as the bright side of computer technology, he explores the logical and historical origins of our computer-generated world and speculates about the future direction of our computerized lives. He probes the notion of "cyberspace," virtual reality (the computer-simulated environments that have captured the popular imagination and may ultimately change the way we define reality itself), and discusses such topics as the effect of word-processing on the English language, and the new kind of literacy promised by Hypertext. Vividly and entertainingly written, The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality opens a window on a fascinating world that promises--or threatens--to become an integral part of everyday life in the twenty-first century. |
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By Alan Craig & Jeffrey D. Will
Morgan Kaufmann
Hardcover (448 pages)
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Virtual Reality has turned the corner from being a mere laboratory novelty to become a valuable tool with practical applications in many fields. From best-selling VR guru Bill Sherman comes Developing Virtual Reality Applications - a comprehensive compendium that examines over 50 unique and foundational VR applications in Business, Science, Medicine, Education, Spatial Studies, Public Safety, and Entertainment industries. Each chapter contains one or more key applications that are explored in depth, as well as examples of these applications in their most recent form and the most current research being conducted. The book also cross-references techniques between different application areas, synthesizing the data into a coherent whole that describes overall VR trends and fundamental best practices. Such synergy gives you a hands-on guide for developing your own applications, and provides an enhanced, longitudinal view of VR development. By promoting mobility across disciplines, Developing Virtual Reality Applications becomes an indispensable one-stop reference for anyone working in this burgeoning field.
- Presents a wide variety of detailed application descriptions across ALL areas of industry, providing you with practical ideas for VR development in ANY area of interest!
- Cross references development techniques between different application areas, supplying you with fundamental best practices across disciplines!
- Includes an online and media-rich companion site with hours of footage from application demonstrations, which puts you in the middle of the action!
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By Richard L. Thompson
Govardhan Hill Publishing
Paperback (304 pages)
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In the world of modern science, consciousness is reduced to a fading epiphenomenon, left over after the brain has been physically explained. It seems to arise when matter is suitably organized, but scientists and philosophers have been unable to explain why complex organization should produce anything beyond complex physical behavior. Yet consciousness won't go away. One possibility is that, instead of being produced by matter, consciousness is a separate element, added to physical systems. This can be modeled using the idea of a virtual reality, in which a human subject enters a computer-simulated world through a sensory interface. In this book, virtual reality is used as a metaphor for our situation as conscious beings. The basic theme is that what we can imagine doing in a virtual reality system may actually be happening in nature on a vastly greater scale. Nature may be like a computer simulation interfaced with conscious observer/participants. This groundbreaking book shows how conscious beings could interact with a physically realistic virtual world. It shows how paranormal phenomena can be reconciled in a natural way with the laws of physics, and it sheds light on paradoxes of time, on life beyond the body, and on cosmic and terrestrial evolution. In a sweeping synthesis, the ideas and data of modern science are used to illuminate the ancient theme of consciousness in a world of illusion. |
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By Carl E. Loeffler
Coriolis Group (Sd)
Paperback (357 pages)
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This book covers Virtual Reality with authority, from business applications such as training simulations and design mockups to the cutting edge of VR in education, art and entertainment. Edited and written by prominent authorities in the field, the book captures the state of the art of Virtual Reality. Includes a comprehensive directory to hardware and software suppliers. |
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