VRMosaic: WEB access from within a virtual environment

Virtual reality can aid in designing large and complex structures such as ships, skyscrapers, factories, and aircraft. But before VR can realize this potential, we need to solve a number of problems. One of these problems: the user's need to see and interact with non-geometric information is examined. Our VR environment, RealEyes, can display large-scale and detailed geometry at reasonable frame rates (>20 Hz) allowing a user to see and navigate within a design from a first person perspective. However, much (if not most) of the information associated with a particular design has no geometric representation. This includes information such as schematics of electrical, hydraulic, and plumbing systems; information describing materials or processes; and descriptive (textual) information of other types. Many researchers have developed a wealth of techniques for presenting such data on flat-screen displays, but until recently, we have not had a means for naturally displaying such information within a VR environment. To make non-geometric data more available, we have implemented a version of Mosaic that functions within a fully immersive VR system. Our system, VRMosaic, allows a user of VR to access and display most of the data available using flat screen Mosaic. Moreover, we have made it extensible to allow for the seamless integration of specialized forms of data and interaction. This paper describes how we implemented VRMosaic using a VR-capable version of Interviews, It also describes some Mosaic-like uses of that system and some "non-Mosaic-like" extensions.