Minutes of LVRG September Meeting
Thursday 26th September
University College London

Sponsors: Superscape http://www.superscape.com/

1. Welcome + meeting overview by Simon

2. Jean Leston from Ovum presented a summary of their report "Virtual
Reality: Business Applications, Markets and Opportunities."

Among her conclusions were that industrial applications generate more
revenue (65%) than entertainment. Also, non-immersive VR was on the
rise, with headset applications becoming more a niche market. She
predicted the following market scenario:

1996-1998 reasonable growth, niche markets
1999-2001 mainstrean penetration
2001 + rapid growth of PC-based applications

In the near future the main interest is likely to be in virtual
prototyping for engineering, and training.

The full report can be purchased from Ovum.

3. Kulwinder Kaur (City University) introduced her PhD work
investigating "Design for Usability of VR." She is modelling the
human-computer interface for virtual environments, and intends to use
this model to predict usability problems.

Kulwinder then initiated a debate with the floor on issues surrounding
VR usability. This generated much useful (and occasionally heated)
comment.

4. Chris Thorborrow, of Silicon Graphics, spoke on the subject of
"Beyond VRML2.0." Chris gave one of his typically enthusiastic talks,
introducing the entertaining SPIKE, a VRML/Java real-time animated
character. Chris promised to post the URLs of his slides/demos to the
mail-list.

+ + +

MINUTES:
London VR Group (LVRG) Committee meeting
Friday 11th October 1996
Global Cafe, Golden Square, London

1. Next Meeting: To be held on Tuesday 26th November 1996
at the South Bank University (SBU).

Speakers will be:
-Hugh Steel from Virtuality,
-James Attree of SBU,
-a representative from Division (name to be confirmed).

Sponsor for this meeting to be confirmed.

2. It was agreed, after representations from some members, to move the
day of the meetings throughout the week. Until now they have always
been on Thursdays, which has proved inconvenient for some. The next
meeting begins this new policy.

3. Speakers balance: confirmed that each meeting should have where
possible,
- an established vendor
- demonstrable new work
- talk/discussion of ideas which may not yet be implemented

A list of possible speakers for the coming months was discussed to fit
this arrangement.

4. January Meeting: a provisional date for Monday 27th January has been
set for the January meeting, to be hosted by Lost Wax Media Ltd.

5. Growth: the issue of growth of the group was brought up, as the
expected interest in VRML and shared worlds, in particular, grows. This
may require the use of larger venues with concommitent change in the
nature of the group. It was agreed that Simon would raise the issue with
members at the next meeting to determine their opinions on the matter.

6. Web Site: it is planned to move the site to a new server with its own
domain name. As Sean, as webmaster, was unable to attend, this matter to
be deferred to the next committee meeting.

7. Publicity: the issue of additional publicity for meetings to attract
new members was raised. However, it was agreed to wait until existing
members views were ascertained at the next group meeting before
proceeding, as it may cause rapid growth in numbers (see point 5 above).