Virtual Reality and Accident Reconstruction
| Published date | 01 April 1996 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X9606900210 |
| Author | Vernon Wilkes |
| Date | 01 April 1996 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
VERNON WILKES
Experienced in the marketing and integration
of
IT systems within
insurance and financial service organizations
VIRTUAL REALITY AND
ACCIDENT RECONSTRUCTION
Wisdom is gained as a result
of
learning through experiencing an event -
or so it used to be. Today, with the latest advances in technology, such
experience can be taught in the classroom.
The notion
of
someone who mediates between acomputerand its users
has become appealing, especially where the structure
of
information may
be complex and the quantity vast. An increasing numberof companies are
opting to use virtual reality software as an integral part
of
their everyday
sales and marketing activities to present concepts and designs, gain
approval and win business.
Computer-generated worlds
come
largely to the fore as a result
of
arcade games and for use in military simulations where the desire to save
money and overcome costs drove virtual reality technology to new
heights. Technology has since moved apace and the perception that
computer-generated, three-dimensional virtual worlds are expensive to
design and integrate into existing systems no longer holds true. Virtual
reality has found its own niche and it is no longer fair to say that it is an
application looking for a useful role in daily life. The advent
of
popular
multimedia -combining text, sound, video, graphics and animation, if
required - has resulted in the expectations of the end user being raised. A
consequence has been an increase in quality, with software developers
examining new target markets.
Virtual reality (VR) has begun to coexist with mainstream multimedia
and, as such, developers have ensured that the delivery platform is
essentially the same. A 486 DX multimedia PC with
4-8Mb
RAM, 100
Mb +hard disk is more than adequate to run all but the mostadvanced VR
programmes.
It
is commonly believed that operators have to utilize acumbersome
head-mounted display to
move
within and control their VR world. Such
astatement is quite untrue as "desktop" VR has been available for four
years and direct movement can be controlled via the keyboard, space
mouse or joystick.
Virtual reality offers the opportunity of "learningthrough doing". Few
systemscurrently availableofferthe usera truly participativefunction that
is overt, intuitiveand more importantly supported through original software.
Moreover, the VR program can be designed to offer adetailed computerized
three-dimensional
simulation.
Such
a
simulation
can
be used for
reconstructing potential
orreal
incidents involving physical loss, damage,
injury or death (whether natural or not).
London-based, Stay Tuned Interactive Ltd, is using Superscape VR
158 The Police Journal
Aprill996
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