
	Description of Objectives and Activities of
		the Human Interface Technology Laboratory


OVERVIEW:

The Human Interface Technology Laboratory (HITL) in Seattle,
Washington is pioneering development of virtual interface hardware 
and virtual environment software, the tools necessary to construct, 
inhabit, and interact with computer generated, three dimensional, 
inclusive environments.  In conjunction with the Washington 
Technology Center, the University of Washington and HITL Industry 
Consortium members, we are building a laboratory infrastructure 
that will support the definition and creation of a completely new 
form of computer interface, hardware and software that is primarily 
responsive to natural human physiology and cognition, systems that 
emphasize spatial interaction rather than symbolic processing.

GOALS:

The objective of the Human Interface Technology Laboratory is to 
develop natural interface techniques, hardware and software 
designed for experiential rather than symbolic interaction.  A virtual 
reality interface feels as though it were reality, permitting human-
machine interaction that calls upon natural human responses, 
responses that we have been acquiring since birth.  Virtual reality 
(VR) techniques are immediately relevant to computational tasks 
that model reality, including scientific visualization, computer-aided 
design and manufacturing, client presentation for architecture and 
interior design, computer-aided instruction, medical imaging and 
simulation, interaction with complex display panels and layouts 
(cockpit design, industrial monitoring, desktop publishing), terrain 
navigation and landscaping, traffic control, and computer games.  In 
the long term, VR techniques hold the promise of innovative 
computational applications such as virtual conferencing, prosthetic 
interfaces, knowledge navigation, virtual sales and merchandising,
and inclusive entertainment.

The long term goal of HITL is to define a new generation of human-
machine interface.  This goal is supported by four major objectives:

	To investigate and understand the fundamentals of human
	perception and interaction with the world, with computational 
	machines, and with information systems.

	To pioneer new interface concepts focusing on VR technologies.

	To create and demonstrate new application areas for VR in 
	aerospace, medicine, education, design and entertainment.

	To transfer advanced interface technologies to the commercial 
	sector.

To achieve these objectives, HITL coordinates and facilitates the efforts 
of an excellent technical staff, University of Washington professors 
and graduate students, other VR labs around the world, and affliated 
professionals from a diversity of application domains.  The HITL 
Industry Consortium provides an active link to corporations wishing 
to market VR technologies and assures cost effective, state-of-the-art 
information and technology transfer.

The overall scope of our research objectives is embodied in HITL's 
three tiered functional organization:

	Infrastructure:  
	    Virtual Interface Knowledge Base and Library
	    Virtual Simulation Laboratory
		Technologies:  
		    Low Cost Virtual Display Hardware
		    Virtual Environment Operating System Software
			Applications:  
			    Virtual Prototyping
			    Visualization
			    Televirtuality
			    Virtual Prostheses

Infrastructure:  
The objective of the Virtual Interface Knowledge Base is to provide 
a world-class repository for experimental data, research findings 
and other information related to virtual interface technologies.  
Activities to achieve this objective include establishing a 
comprehensive literature collection, hosting the USENET newsgroup 
"sci.virtual-worlds" and preparing hardcopy newsletters on research 
developments in virtual reality.

The Virtual Simulation Laboratory is intended to provide a rapid 
prototyping environment for the simulation of virtual interface 
concepts, software and hardware which emphasizes empirical 
research on human sensory, perceptual and psychomotor behavior in 
virtual environments.  The simulation laboratory will include modules 
for electro-optical testing, complex control panel modeling, image 
generation, audio generation and recognition, virtual world design 
and integration, behavioral instrumentation and measurement, and 
human physics, neurophysiology and cognition.

Technologies

HITL will develope two primary technologies to support it's long-term 
objectives. The virtual display hardware focuses on head-coupled units, 
which feature visual and audio displays, voice and eye sensors
and head movement tracking.  The virtual environment operating system 
is the software substrate which mediates the interface between the 
symbolic computation that generates the virtual environment and the 
natural behavior of the patron within the virtual environment.

Our objective for the head-mounted display is to produce a 
commercial prototype that is both high in performance and low in 
cost.  We expect this unit to rival the monitor as the medium of 
visual (and auditory) display of computational processes in the next 
decade.

Our objective for the virtual environment operating system is to 
provide a seamless environment which couples input behaviors of 
the patron to computational processes, manages the activity and 
modeling of the (parallel) computational processes, and integrates 
output signals from models and other sources to drive the virtual 
display devices.  The virtual environment operating system 
incorporates three modules.  The signal interpretor receives, 
validates and integrates sensor information generated by the patron, 
negotiating ambiguous and erroneous signals.  The modeling module 
maintains and coordinates the representation, processes, and 
interaction between objects (model elements), managing memory, 
process allocation, and multiple patrons.  We intend to develop a 
uniform internal architecture for models, combining object-oriented 
approaches with rulebased logic programming to create objects 
which act as situated agents.  The display integrator integrates 
standardized output from models, error processes and model-
independent hardware, managing viewpoint and perspective and 
integrating multiple sources of images.

The virtual environment operating system provides a wide range of 
software tools for construction of and interaction with models, 
including editors of objects, spaces, and abstractions; movement and 
viewpoint control; object inhabitation; boundary integrity; display, 
resource and time management; multiple concurrent patrons; 
programmable internal processes within models; and history and 
statistics accumulation.  Some potential user interface tools include 
the Wand, for identifying objects, connecting, moving, jacking, 
grasping, measuring, and drawing; and the Virtual Body for attaching 
arbitrary hardware sensing devices to arbitrary representations of body 
components, for collecting physiological measurements of behavior, 
and for maintaining coherence between a patron's model of physical 
activity and the virtual representation.

Applications:  
Although VR techniques have an extremely broad range of potential 
applications, we are choosing to focus on four application areas 
during the first few years of the Lab's operation.

The objectives of the Virtual Prototyping application are to provide 
tools for the rapid configuration of complex (virtual) machines and 
control panels; to provide functional connections between display 
and computational processes; and to enhance the coordination of 
design activities involving groups of professionals.

The Visualization application is designed to provide tools for 
associating data with 3D visual models; to project, cluster and 
abstract data patterns; to interact with displayed data while 
automatically updating the underlying database; and to apply 
statistical and analytic techniques to displayed data.

The Televirtuality application includes the design and development 
of virtual environments which support multiple interacting patrons;  
connection of multiple patrons and multiple computational resources 
over fiber optic networks; and the exploration of techniques for 
maintenance of inconsistent and incompatable virtual environments 
over multiple patrons.

The objective of the Virtual Prostheses application is to develop aids 
for physically disabled persons that permit mapping of arbitrary 
movements onto functional virtual bodies.  Two active projects are 
the integration of VR techniques with advanced wheelchair 
technology, and the control of textual display for dyslexia and 
reading disabilities.

SUMMARY:

VR is an infant field.  HITL intends to contribute to communal
knowledge to help resolve software, hardware, physiological and
cognitive issues in VR.  The domains we are addressing include
	design of multi-sensory display systems, 
	electro-optics and microscanners,
	multi-sensor integration and synesthesia,
	VR neurophysiology, psychophysics and psychometrics,
	occlusive, overlayed and enhancing VRs,
	cross-validation of varieties of reality,
	physiological and cognitive design 
		of task-oriented virtual environments, 
	3D representation techniques and interaction tools, 
	editing techniques for objects, spaces, and abstractions,
	visual programming languages, 
	virtual bodies and inhabitation techniques, 
	integration of multiple patrons, 
	design of situated and cooperative agents, 
	autonomous objects and inconsistent environments, and
	form abstraction and the functionality of space.



The Human Interface Technology Laboratory
Washington Technology Center
University of Washington, FU-20
Seattle WA  98195
206-543-5075

	Dr. Thomas Furness, Director
	Dr. Bob Jacobson
	Dr. William Bricken
