Named a Best Book of the Year by the Economist, Wall Street Journal & Vox 'The father of virtual reality' (Sunday Times) explains why virtual reality presents the ultimate test for humanity. 'Essential reading, not just for VR-watchers but for anyone interested in how society came to be how it is, and what it might yet become' Economist Welcome to a mind-expanding, life-enhancing, world-changing adventure. Virtual reality has long been one of the dominant cliches of science fiction. Now virtual reality is a reality: from the startling beauty of lifelike video games to the place where war veterans overcome PTSD, surgeries are trialled, and aircraft and cities are designed. VR is, in fact now, the most effective device ever invented for researching what a human being actually is - and how we think and feel. More than thirty years ago, legendary computer scientist, visionary and artist Jaron Lanier pioneered its invention. Here he blends scientific investigation, philosophical thought experiment and his memoir of a life lived at the centre of digital innovation to explain what VR really is: the science of comprehensive illusion; the extension of the intimate magic of earliest childhood into adulthood; a hint of what life would be like without any limits. We are standing on the threshold of an entirely new realm of human creativity, expression, communication and experience, and as we use VR to test our relationship with reality, it may test us in return. 'Vivid and absolutely extraordinary' Evening Standard

The Manual of Digital Museum Planning is a comprehensive guide to digital planning, development, and operations for museum professionals and students of museums studies and arts administration. In the tradition of Lord Cultural Resource's renowned manuals, this book gives practical advice on how digital can enhance and improve all aspects of the museum. With chapters written by experienced professionals working at leading institutions such as the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Bristol Culture, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and others, The Manual of Digital Museum Planning is an easy-to-understand, step-by-step guide for anyone planning a new museum, a museum expansion, or a new project in the Digital Age. *Part 1 explains how digital technologies are transforming museums *and their value proposition *Part 2 explores how adopting a user-centric, omnichannel approach creates new relationships between museums and communities *Part 3 offers a guide to integrating digital into the workflow of museums- from data analytics, to user experience design to project management *Part 4 identifies the business models, infrastructure and skills and competencies for the digital museum, Each chapter culminates in 'summary takeaways' for easy recall, and key words are defined throughout. A glossary and reference list are also included as an accessible resources for readers.

"With his YouTube channel, Mitch's VR Lab, Mitch has helped thousands of people understand the foundations of locomotion and interaction mechanics with clear and concise UE4 videos. I'm thrilled that he has taken the time to bring all his knowledge and experience in working with Unreal Engine and Virtual Reality to the Unreal (R) Engine VR Cookbook.... Mitch is uniquely qualified to share this book with the world." -Luis Cataldi, Unreal Engine Education, Epic Games, Inc. For game developers and visualization specialists, VR is the next amazing frontier to conquer-and Unreal Engine 4 is the ideal platform to conquer it with. Unreal (R) Engine VR Cookbook is your complete, authoritative guide to building stunning experiences on any Unreal Engine 4-compatible VR hardware. Renowned VR developer and instructor Mitch McCaffrey brings together best practices, common interaction paradigms, specific guidance on implementing these paradigms in Unreal Engine, and practical guidance on choosing the right approaches for your project. McCaffrey's tested "recipes" contain step-by-step instructions, while empowering you with concise explanations of the underlying theory and math. Whether you're creating first-person shooters or relaxation simulators, the techniques McCaffrey explains help you get immediate results, as you gain "big picture" knowledge and master nuances that will help you succeed with any genre or project. Understand basic VR concepts and terminology Implement VR logic with Blueprint visual scripting Create basic VR projects with Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Gear VR, Google VR, PSVR, and other environments Recognize and manage differences between seated and standing VR experiences Set up trace interactions and teleportation Work with UMG and 2D UIs Implement character inverse kinematics (IK) for head and hands Define effective motion controller interaction Help users avoid motion sickness Optimize VR applications Explore the VR editor, community resources, and more If you're ready to master VR on Unreal Engine 4, this is the practical resource you've been searching for! Register your product at informit.com/register for convenient access to downloads, updates, and corrections as they become available.

Microsoft Kinect changes the notion of user interface design. It differs from most other user input controllers as it enables users to interact with the program without touching the mouse or a trackpad. It utilizes motion sensing technology and all it needs is a real-time cameras, tracked skeletons, and gestures. This title will help you get into the world of Microsoft Kinect programming with the C/C++ language. The book covers the installation, image streaming, skeleton and face tracking, multi-touch cursors, and gesture emulation. Finally, you will end up with a complete Kinect-based game.

Virtual environments simulate a physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds. Most current virtual reality environments are primarily visual experiences, displayed either on a computer screen or through special stereoscopic displays, but some simulations include additional sensory information, such as sound through speakers or headphones. In this book, the authors discuss the new developments, applications and challenges of virtual environments. Topics include measuring brain activation during spatial navigation in virtual reality; spatial representation of a multilevel building; user experience in a virtual art gallery; virtual environments in education; social networks and virtual environments from an adolescent point of view; and bringing skin observations to a higher level with 3D immersive virtual environments.

Mass spectrometry has proven its applicability to the measurement of almost any molecule. However, different substances require special knowledge in the respective field and scientists tend to focus on their particular task in collaborations and meetings. Nevertheless, disciplines have become more and more interdisciplinary and scientists now have to acquire knowledge in many scientific fields other than our own. Especially mass spectrometrists, who often find them selves learning about the history of their sample, be it from a zoologist, clinician, microbiologist, or biochemist. This was evident with the rise of proteomics, which reaches across species and research projects, uniting scientists through the methodology. This book presents research from around the globe in the fields of biomacromolecules such as proteins, DNA, and other biopolymers studied with mass spectrometry.

Drug Abuse (NIDA) funded research project on drug information and online drug-related communities. The editors of this pivotal text, Edward Murguia, Ann Lessem, and Melissa Tackett-Gibson, elevate the debate about drug use and the Internet from a polemic discourse to social scientific investigation. The essays confront issues related to the study of drug communication online, including the causal factors of abuse as discussed in online forums, the relationship between music and drug use in virtual communities, and the ways in which individuals assess the accuracy of online drug information. This book highlights the variety of ways to examine drug use as a social problem and presents several theoretical perspectives valuable to online research. Real Drugs in a Virtual World is an enlightening and thought provoking read that will appeal to sociology students and those interested in virtual communities.

Get practical tools to successfully develop collaborative online learning projects! Virtual museums provide an opportunity to spark learning through online access to multi-sensory information, and collaboration between sources is needed to efficiently and effectively catalog and present material. Collaborative Access to Virtual Museum Collection Information: Seeing Through the Walls presents respected authorities exploring the world of virtual collections, from the identification and selection of objects to be included to providing online access using common terminology. Future possibilities and problems are fully detailed, taking into consideration the need for fixed metadata, descriptive standards, and negotiated compromise. Solutions to difficult issues are provided to allow successful development of collaborative virtual museum projects of all types. A virtual museum can provide users with direct, easy access to information, photographs, drawings, sound files, and video clips. However, discipline-based differences in terminology between collections are as much a challenge as integrating detailed locally-developed vocabularies with more general descriptors. Collaborative Access to Virtual Museum Collection Information: Seeing Through the Walls shows how to best achieve consistent information access by providing studies of successful collaborative museum projects which resulted in the creation of catalogs of material from a number of separate collections. The book helps you to understand the challenges of dealing with an unknown online user community as well as the opportunities for presenting information to the virtual museum visitor that differs from that information available during an on-site visit. Four case studies are presented in depth and highlight practical strategies on the development of collaborative common language for future projects. Extensive references provide opportunity for further research while tables clearly illustrate data. Collaborative Access to Virtual Museum Collection Information: Seeing Through the Walls thoroughly explores: cataloging and the digital collection at the Experience Music Project the collaborative cataloging efforts using Dublin Core to unite local heritage organizations the compromises and negotiations necessary to build a common catalog for multiple collaborating organizations the challenges of creating contextual information that places objects in relationship to their creators and the circumstances of their use the partnership between museums with Native American collections and tribally controlled schools the types of images indexed by museum practitioners indexing procedures and systems identifying potentially sensitive information for inclusion or exclusion in online collection databases Collaborative Access to Virtual Museum Collection Information: Seeing Through the Walls is cutting-edge information for museum archivists, librarians, collection curators, and anyone involved in creating catalogs or providing online access to existing museum collection information.

Virtual Politics is a critical overview of the new - digital - body politic, with new technologies framing the discussion of key themes in social theory. This book shows how these new technologies are altering the nature of identity and agency, the relation of self to other, and the structure of community and political representation.

Virtual Culture provides a unique analysis of a previously undocumented aspect of the cybersociety. Until now, the debate about participation in cyberculture has tended to focus on the ways that certain segments of the population are denied access to communications technologies. By contrast, the contributors to this volume scrutinize the way in which under-represented groupsùgay men, women, and special interest groupsùare exploiting the opportunities that the Internet provides for social and political change. Virtual Culture presents contributions from a range of subject disciplines, including communication, sociology, and anthropology in order to reflect on the diverse paradigms currently engaged in the study of electronic communities and networks. It sets out the definitions, boundaries, and approaches to the studies of these topics while demonstrating the theoretical and practical possibilities for cybersociety as an identity-structured space. Virtual Culture will be required reading for all students of communication, media and technology.

Understanding Hypermedia, first published in 1993, firmly established itself in the design and media community as the definitive introduction to this exciting new communications medium. Understanding Hypermedia 2.0 completely revises the original edition, bringing the story of hypermedia bang up to date with full coverage of the Internet and other new developments. The book examines all of the digital media, from Web sites and CD-ROMs to satellite communications. A history of hypermedia and its key players is followed by a survey of the controversial issues that surround it and an overview of the elements that can make up a hypermedia product, including sound, video, animation and hypertext. An extensive gallery of applications shows how the medium is now being used to inform, entertain, sell to and communicate with users worldwide. Practical information on design and production is also included, together with an extensive glossary of technical terms and a comprehensive bibliography. The book concludes with a look towards the digital future in the new millennium.

An examination of subversive games-games designed for political, aesthetic, and social critique. For many players, games are entertainment, diversion, relaxation, fantasy. But what if certain games were something more than this, providing not only outlets for entertainment but a means for creative expression, instruments for conceptual thinking, or tools for social change? In Critical Play, artist and game designer Mary Flanagan examines alternative games-games that challenge the accepted norms embedded within the gaming industry-and argues that games designed by artists and activists are reshaping everyday game culture. Flanagan provides a lively historical context for critical play through twentieth-century art movements, connecting subversive game design to subversive art: her examples of "playing house" include Dadaist puppet shows and The Sims. She looks at artists' alternative computer-based games and explores games for change, considering the way activist concerns-including worldwide poverty and AIDS-can be incorporated into game design. Arguing that this kind of conscious practice-which now constitutes the avant-garde of the computer game medium-can inspire new working methods for designers, Flanagan offers a model for designing that will encourage the subversion of popular gaming tropes through new styles of game making, and proposes a theory of alternate game design that focuses on the reworking of contemporary popular game practices.

A Complete Toolbox of Theories and Techniques The second edition of a bestseller, Handbook of Virtual Environments: Design, Implementation, and Applications presents systematic and extensive coverage of the primary areas of research and development within VE technology. It brings together a comprehensive set of contributed articles that address the principles required to define system requirements and design, build, evaluate, implement, and manage the effective use of VE applications. The contributors provide critical insights and principles associated with their given areas of expertise to provide extensive scope and detail on VE technology and its applications. What's New in the Second Edition: Updated glossary of terms to promote common language throughout the community New chapters on olfactory perception, avatar control, motion sickness, and display design, as well as a whole host of new application areas Updated information to reflect the tremendous progress made over the last decade in applying VE technology to a growing number of domains This second edition includes nine new, as well as forty-one updated chapters that reflect the progress made in basic and applied research related to the creation, application, and evaluation of virtual environments. Contributions from leading researchers and practitioners from multidisciplinary domains provide a wealth of theoretical and practical information, resulting in a complete toolbox of theories and techniques that you can rely on to develop more captivating and effective virtual worlds. The handbook supplies a valuable resource for advancing VE applications as you take them from the laboratory to the real-world lives of people everywhere.

As the second volume of the "Digital Oil & Gas Pipeline: Research and Practice" series of monographs, this book introduces the implementation strategies, examples and technical roadmaps of two important aspects of the Digital Oil & Gas Pipeline construction: pipeline real-time data integration and pipeline network virtual reality system. Two example of pipeline real-time data integration are elaborated: integration of pipeline WebGIS (Geographic Information System) and pipeline SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) via OPC (OLE for Process Control) technology, integration of pipeline network virtual reality system and pipeline SCADA via OPC, JNI (Java Native Interface) and SAI (Scene Access Interface). The pipeline network virtual reality system aims for the pipeline virtual expression, interaction, and 3D visual management. It can be used for pipeline route visual design and plan, immersive pipeline industry training, remote visual supervision and control, etc. The implementation details of the pipeline network virtual reality system, including 3D pipeline and terrain modeling with X3D (Extensible 3D) technology, improving large-scene display performance and speed in the network environment using LOD (Level of Detail) technology, interaction of virtual pipeline scenes, and pipeline 3D visual monitoring, are also introduced. The knowledge and experience delivered by this book will provide useful reference for the readers from the industries of oil & gas pipeline, GIS, Virtual Reality, industrial control, etc.

In his classic work Anarchy, State and Utopia, Robert Nozick asked his readers to imagine being permanently plugged into a 'machine that would give you any experience you desired'. He speculated that, in spite of the many obvious attractions of such a prospect, most people would choose against passing the rest of their lives under the influence of this type of invention. Nozick thought (and many have since agreed) that this simple thought experiment had profound implications for how we think about ethics, political justice, and the significance of technology in our everyday lives. Nozick's argument was made in 1974, about a decade before the personal computer revolution in Europe and North America. Since then, opportunities for the citizens of industrialized societies to experience virtual worlds and simulated environments have multiplied to an extent that no philosopher could have predicted. The authors in this volume re-evaluate the merits of Nozick's argument, and use it as a jumping-off point for the philosophical examination of subsequent developments in culture and technology, including a variety of experience-altering cybernetic technologies such as computer games, social media networks, HCI devices, and neuro-prostheses.

Create Genuine Visual Realism in Computer Graphics Digital Representations of the Real World: How to Capture, Model, and Render Visual Reality explains how to portray visual worlds with a high degree of realism using the latest video acquisition technology, computer graphics methods, and computer vision algorithms. It explores the integration of new capture modalities, reconstruction approaches, and visual perception into the computer graphics pipeline. Understand the Entire Pipeline from Acquisition, Reconstruction, and Modeling to Realistic Rendering and Applications The book covers sensors for capturing 3D scenes, including regular cameras, wide-angle omnidirectional cameras, active range scanners, and plenoptic (multi-viewpoint) cameras, as well as fundamental algorithms for processing the imagery, such as stereo correspondence and 3D structure and motion recovery. It describes 3D modeling techniques, from generic object models (such as 3D meshes) to more domain-specific models (such as human shape and motion models). The book also discusses how techniques, including image- and video-based rendering, meet speed and realism requirements. Overcome Challenges in Your Own Research Experiments This book is both an accessible introduction to the emerging research of real-world visual computing and a practical guide that shows you how to start implementing frequently encountered methods.

Virtual worlds have exploded out of online game culture and now capture the attention of millions of ordinary people: husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, workers, retirees. Devoting dozens of hours each week to massively multiplayer virtual reality environments (like "World of Warcraft "and "Second Life"), these millions are the start of an exodus into the refuge of fantasy, where they experience life under a new social, political, and economic order built around "fun." Given the choice between a fantasy world and the real world, how many of us would choose reality? "Exodus to the Virtual World" explains the growing migration into virtual reality, and how it will change the way we live--both in fantasy worlds and in the real one.

How can we interpret cyberspace? What is the place of the embodied human agent in the virtual world? This innovative collection explores the emerging arena of cyberspace and the challenges it presents for the social and cultural forms of the human body. Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk shows how changing relationships between body and technology offer new arenas for cultural representations. At the same time, the contributors consider the realities of human embodiment and the limits of virtual worlds. Topics examined include technological body modifications, replacements and prosthetics, bodies in cyberspace, virtual environments and cyborg culture, cultural representations of technological embodiment in visual and literary productions, and cyberpunk science fiction as a prefigurative social and cultural theory. Academics and students in cultural studies, popular culture, communication, sociology of culture, philosophy will appreciate this intriguing volume, as will general readers with an interest in the Internet.