Re: Virtual Reality dinos (+ von Daniken)

[Phillip Bigelow <n8010095@henson.cc.wwu.edu>]

:>Well we did talk about this awhile ago. If you remember Betty (I think)
:>mentioned that bandnwidth is the real problem.  To construct a 3D image so
:>that the "touchy/feely" of the bone is evident, one needs to look at more
:>than an order of magnitudebetter images than we have now with all the
:>attendent bandwidth problems of stowage and transmission.  Your 14,400 modem
:>would have to be on the order of 200,000 or so etc,etc.

  Depending on how this research into virtual reality actually plays out
(and who knows), bandwidth may not be a problem at all, even with today's
transmission limitations.
  The simplest way to impliment virt. reality over the Internet would to run
the software locally rather than remotely.  A hypothetical situation:

Say 5-10 years from now, Tom Holtz has landed his well-deserved position at
the AMNH, and is involved in research on the hip-femur articulation in
tyrannosaurids.  He reads in the latest _Nature_ that Ken Carpenter has just
finished scanning-in a complete T. rex found under the foundation of the
residence of the Mayor of Denver, during construction of a basement swimming
pool.  Carpenter's scanned T. rex takes up 500 gigabytes, broken up into 50
or so files.  Ken is involved in another project, and has no interest in the
new T. rex at the present time.  Tom calls Ken and asks for the files
for the illium-ischium-pubis and femur to be ftp-ed over to him in New York.
Let's say for the sake of argument that the file-format is some form of
virtual reality file "standard" used by all paleontologists.  Ken sends the
requested files to Tom.  At Tom's end, Tom has "Virtual-Bone ver. 1.1.0"
a shareware <snicker> virtual reality program for paleontologsts.  Tom loads
Ken's files into "Virtual-Bone", and away he goes...rotating that femur into
all kinds of unnatural positions.
 So, instead of having to manipulate a virtual bone remotely over the 'Net,
it can all be done on your local computer, saving all of that slow time and
bandwidth. But, after Tom is done with his study, is he the legal owner of
those files that Ken ftp-ed him?  Ahh. Complications, complications....