Subject: VRASP: Object Glove released!

From: "Mark T. Pflaging" <[email-masked]>
Date: 17 May 93 03:06:15 EDT

Press Release

The Virtual Reality Alliance of Students and Professionals (VRASP)
announces a new set of programming tools and programs to access Mattel
Power Gloves on IBM PC compatible computers.  Object Glove is a library
that can be used by Borland C++ 3.1 programmers to add Power
Glove(TM) support to practically any existing application, including
applications for MS-DOS and Windows 3.1.  An exciting new feature of
Object Glove is the Court Jesture recognition system, which allows people
to control a computer by making hand signals or "gestures".  Object Glove
supports the use of two Power Gloves(TM) simultaneously, and different
gestures can be assigned to each hand.  Since the gestures actually trigger
software events, programmers are free to interpret gestures in any way.

Several applications have been developed to take advantage of Object
Glove and Court Jesture.  There are MS-DOS and Windows programs that
display a representation of a hand on the screen and print out the names of
gestures as they are received by the system.  Gestures can be added or
modified simply by changing a plain text input file - this does not require a
programmer.  In the Windows version, gestures can easily be made to
trigger multimedia sounds, providing auditory feedback.  There is also a
program to control the Windows "cursor" permitting the user to use the
glove as a pointing device.  Any gesture can be used to represent mouse
clicks.  Finally, Object Glove and Court Jesture have been combined with
REND386,  which allows people to navigate and manipulate a 3D virtual
world.  The program has been enhanced to support two independent
gloves, and to have gestures that control the viewpoint position in the
virtual world.  REND386, originally written by Dave Stampe and Bernie
Roehl, also includes the capability to generate stereoscopic views
compatible with Sega 3D glasses or the Toshiba 3 Dimension Scope.

VRASP will be exhibiting two custom Object Glove applications at the
Virtual Reality '93 conference in San Jose, California, May 19-21.  The
first has been dubbed the "Literary Gallery" - it is a multimedia application
with full-motion video and sound controlled with a Power Glove(TM).
The media links contain references to fundamental Virtual Reality ideas as
presented by famous authors through the centuries.  The other project uses
an exercise machine to immerse a person in a virtual world.  By stepping
forward on the exercise machine, the participant moves forward in a
REND386-generated world that is displayed in front of him or her.  They
can pick up and move objects when wearing a  Power Glove, and they can
change their direction of motion by moving their head.

Object Glove libraries, source code, and demo disks can be purchased at
very low cost through VRASP.  The programming libraries and source
code packages include more than sixty pages of printed documentation.
The demo disks, offered for $2 to cover media and duplication costs,
include many working programs, but do not allow programmers to use the
glove in their own applications or to modify the existing applications
significantly.  In addition, VRASP offers Power Gloves(TM) and PC-to-
Glove connectors.  One- or two- glove  connectors are available to simplify
glove installation.  The demonstration programs can also be obtained by
anonymous ftp in the internet:
Host name: sunee.uwaterloo.ca
Directory: /pub/glove
File name:  objglv.exe
The CompuServe forum GRAPHDEV stores the files O2GLOV.ZIP,
OBJGLV.ZIP, DEMO4B.ZIP, and WINGLV.ZIP in the VR Tech section.
OBJGLV.ZIP is the most complete demo, and the others are subsets to
reduce download time.

VRASP is proud to bring this news to you first and provide you with the
means to put together a low-cost PC Virtual Reality system.