VIRTUAL REALITY TECHNOLOGY
                     Grigore Burdea and Philippe Coiffet
                     John Wiley & Sons, 400 pp, 23 color plates, 
                     212 drawings and tables,
                     ISBN 0-471-08632-0 (Cloth) June 17 1994.
                     Call: 1-800-225-5945 or 1-212-850-6418 FAX: 1-212-850-6088
                           1-800-263-1590 (Canada)

                    T A B L E   O F  C O N T E N T S

1. INTRODUCTION. What Is Virtual Reality? The Three "I"s Of Virtual Reality.
   A Short History Of Virtual Reality. Towards Commercialization.
   The Contents Of This Book.

2. VIRTUAL REALITY TOOLS. 3-D Position Sensors. 3-D Magnetic Sensors. 
   Ultrasound 3-D Sensors. Trackballs. 3-D Probes. Sensing Gloves.
   The DataGlove; The CyberGlove; The PowerGlove; The Dextrous Hand Master;
   Stereo Viewing Devices. Human Eye Stereo Viewing; Head Mounted Displays;
   LCD-based HMDs; CRT-based HMDs; Binocular Omni-Orientation Monitors (Booms);
   The "Cyberscope"; Stereo Glasses; Stereo Projection Screens; 
   Autostereoscopic 3-D Displays. 3-D Sound Generators; Human Hearing Model;
   The Convolvotron; The Beachtron And The Acoustetron. Conclusion.

3. TOUCH AND FORCE FEEDBACK. Touch Feedback Is Different From  Force Feedback.
   Virtual Touch/Force-Feedback Requirements. Touch Feedback. Pneumatic Touch 
   Feedback; Vibrotactile Feedback; Enhanced Tactile Feedback; Force Feedback.
   Force-Feedback Arms; Joysticks; "Enhanced" Joysticks; Portable Masters;
   The Rutgers Portable Master With Force Feedback; The LRP Hand Master;
   The "SAFIRE" And The "Force ArmMaster"; Combining Force And Touch Feedback.
   Conclusion.

4. COMPUTING ARCHITECTURES. Frame Rate Vs. Computational Load. Graphics 
   Performance Vs. Shading Mode. Graphics Performance Vs. Scene Complexity.
   PC-Based VR Engine. 486-PC With ActionMedia Graphics Accelerators; 
   486-PC With Spea "Fire" Graphic Accelerators; Other PC-Based Graphic 
   Accelerators. Workstation-Based Architectures. The Virtual Holographic 
   Workstation; The Provision 100 Workstation. Highly Parallel VR Engines. 
   Distributed VR. Supercomputer-Based Systems; IBM Distributed System; 
   Distributed Force Feedback; Two-User Systems. Conclusion.

5. MODELING. Geometric Modeling. Object Shape; Object Appearance; Kinematic 
   Modeling. Object Position. Collision Detection; Flying, Grabbing And Scaling;
   Object Hierarchies; Viewing The 3-D World; Physical Modeling. Weight 
   Modeling. Surface Deformation And Compliance; Surface Smoothness; Object 
   Behavior. Model Segmentation. Cell Segmentation; Level Of Detail 
   Segmentation; Conclusion.

6. PROGRAMMING IN VR. The VR Editor. RenderWare; The VRT3 Editor. The Amaze 
   Editor. The Resident Modeler. Event Scheduling. Real-time Distributed 
   Simulation. Task Decomposition; Actors; The Hierarchy Element. 
   The Shared Data Space; Graphical Programming. Non-Commercial VR Toolkits.
   Conclusion. 

7. HUMAN FACTORS IN VR. Evaluation Difficulties. VR Evaluation Methodology.
   Control (Feedback); Vision And Graphics Feedback; Influence Of The Image 
   Refresh Rate; Depth Perception; Color Discrimination; Passive Vision; Active
   Vision; Enhanced Vision; Audio Feedback; "Passive" Audio Feedback; "Active"
   Audio Feedback; "Enhanced" Audio Feedback; Force And Tactile (Haptic) 
   Feedback; Evaluation Of Sensing Gloves With Haptic Feedback; Evaluation Of 
   Integrated Systems; "Hand-Hand Coordination"; "Hand-Eye" Coordination
   With Haptic Feedback; "Hand-Ear" Coordination; "Voice-Ear" And "Voice-Eye"
   Coordination; "Multimodal" Coordination; Simulation Sickness. VR And The 
   Society. Impact On Our Professional Life; Impact On Our Private Life; Impact
   On Our Public Life; Conclusion.

8. APPLICATIONS. Medicine and Rehabilitation. Surgery; VR Anatomy Trainer;
   Surgical Simulators; Telesurgery; Hybrid Systems; Rehabilitation; Hand 
   Diagnostic; Body Rehabilitation; Improving Quality Of Life For The Disabled;
   Biotechnology; Entertainment, Arts and Education. Entertainment applications;
   VR Arcades; Home-based VR Entertainment; The Arts; Videoplace; Mandala;
   Virtual Actors; The Virtual Museum; Virtual Music; Education; Military and 
   Aerospace. Military Applications; The SIMNET tank trainer network;
   Antisubmarine Warfare; The Virtual Stinger Trainer; Aerospace Applications;
   The NASA Virtual Reality Training; The European Space Agency; The Virtual 
   Cockpit; Business Applications. Finance; The Maxus Stock Trading Interface;
   Currency Exchange Visualization; Experiential Advertising; Interior Design;
   Robotics and Manufacturing. VR Applications in Robotics; Aid in Robot Design;
   Navigation in Unstructured Environments; Off-line Programming; Teleoperation;
   Manufacturing; Conclusion.

9. THE FUTURE. Large Volume Tracking. New Displays. New Haptic Displays. Neural
   Interfaces. "Image Gloves". Voice Control. Portable Computers. Programming 
   and Modeling. Conclusion.

   BIBLIOGRAPHY.
   LIST OF COMPANIES AND RESEARCH LABORATORIES.
   INDEX.