This course presented various rationales justifying the need for Virtual Reality (VR), and outlined what VR can offer beyond traditional computer solutions. It answered questions such as: Why do we need VR? What does VR have to offer that I can't already develop with existing 3D interactive computer graphics techniques? It did not focus on exploring available VR hardware and software. Rather, it examined the features of VR technology and related them to specific applications. It also concentrated on identifying how VR can be applied to today's scientific and engineering challenges.

Prerequisites
Working knowledge of basic computer graphics. Some knowledge of real-time programming concepts, distributed computing, and networking useful but not required.

Topics Covered
Rendering techniques, geometric modeling, texturing, graphics interface design, graphics hardware architectures, and software toolkits.

Organizer
Carolina Cruz-Neira
Iowa State University

Lecturers
Allen Bierbaum
Carolina Cruz-Neira
Christopher Just
Judy Vance
Iowa State University

Rudolph Darken
Naval Postgraduate School

Mary Lynne Dittmar
Boeing Information, Space, and Defense Systems

Richard Gillilan
Cornell University

Oliver Riedel
Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering