VR on the Net

The fastest-growing and perhaps most important VR venue is the Internet, where an updated version of the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) has spurred the development of the first Web-based 3-D authoring tools, browsers and related products. VRML 2.0, which made its debut in August 1996, was developed in cooperation with Netscape, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics and other major Internet players. Some software developers are taking advantage of VRML. Virtus, for example, offers several tools for creating 3-D environments on the Web. Using Virtus products, Web merchants can create online shops with walk-around showrooms, product demonstrations and virtual sales clerks. "VRML has the potential to help make online shopping more like real-world shopping, only more convenient and fun," says Chuck

Riegel, Virtus senior vice president of marketing. But Internet VR's promise extends far beyond cyber-retailing, he adds. "The real potential exists when you mix graphics processing off a CD-ROM and positional data is transferred back and forth on the Internet," he says. "With that sort of arrangement, a factory manager could personally take a group of executives from around the world on a tour of his plant, or a travel agent could guide customers through available hotels in a given city." Although VR is an exciting and seductive field, Virtus's Riegel says that CIOs and managers need to forget the hype and simply view the technology as another real-world tool. "You're taking the right approach if you look at your organization's current systems and applications and wonder how they can be helped with the addition of 3-D simulation or virtual world interactivity," he says. Richardson says VR's potential has yet to be tapped, largely because of resistance from CIOs and managers who refuse to even consider using the technology. "There's no doubt that many organizations have been scared away from VR due to concerns about its perceived high cost and complexity or just because of a built-in bias toward anything that's trendy or experimental," he says. "But given the rapid progress the VR market has made over the past few years, it's time for many decision makers to reconsider their attitude."