1. Tell me what are primitives in VRML?
Primitives are basic geometric shapes that are built into the language. The shapes available are: Sphere, Box, Cylinder and Cone. You should abuse these nodes because they are defined in a small number of lines, keeping the size of your document at a minimum.
2. Tell me do I have to compile my VRML code?
No. Unlike Java, VRML doesn't need to be compiled at all. That's why it requires a plugin for viewing it.
3. Explain me are you in the research labs?
We have an Oculus research lab in Seattle that we've talked about, and that's really more pure research, like long-term. I work more on the near-term productization team. And it's in terms of there is R&D, but it's not years out, it's in the near-term like getting the next product out the door and making it as good as possible-type of R&D.
4. Tell me do I need a VR headset in order to watch the videos?
In order to experience virtual reality, you'll need a VR headset such as a Google Cardboard, the HTC Vive, or the Oculus Rift. You can purchase a Google Cardboard from several recommended vendors. See Google Cardboard's website for more information.
5. Please explain, wouldn't whole-body haptics be the ultimate in VR sensing?
This is a fascinating modality because it's the one with the highest bandwidth. It would open access to cognitive powers that seem to be innate, such as the ability of the hands to find harmonically correct paths between chords on a piano without the need for conscious thought. Whole body haptics would allow us to enter, explore and virtually experience structures that we cannot even see.
6. Tell me what will it take? Will it take marketing spending?
It's going to take good content, units in the field, and a probably lot of grassroots evangelism. I don't think a television ad and can nearly be as effective as showing people this thing.
7. Tell me how might the virtual world change the world of work?
That's complex because there are so many different kinds of work. But my vision is that the virtual world will become the place in which each individual can achieve a form of success that suits his or her character. That's what a successful future for mankind looks like. Over the last couple of centuries, every time a technology has gotten better, it has put some people out of work. But it has also created new jobs. And the new jobs are usually more dignified and pleasant than those they replaced. Looking ahead, therefore, the question of human dignity is the only question that matters. It is the only purpose of developing technologies.
8. Tell me when did you decide that mobile VR was important?
We've known it would be important for a long time. Even since the beginning of the company, people said "what's the long-term vision of how these headsets are going to work?" And it's very clear--in the future, it's all going to be headsets with onboard computing power... We knew mobile would be an important component, we just didn't know it would be so soon.
9. Explain me how do we get started with VRML?
You can use any text editor to write your VRML code, there are also a great number of programs available in the Web for different platforms, some for free and others pretty expensive. For viewing your work, as I said before, you'll need a browser with a plugin, there's quite a variety that you can choose from for different platforms. If you have some programming knowledge learning VRML will be piece of cake, if not it still pretty easy.
10. Tell me where can I find the specification for VRML?
We can find it at the VRML Consortium site
11. Tell me is VRML case sensitive?
Yes! The most common errors are from mis-typed case letters.
12. Tell me what composes a VRML document?
The structure of the VRML document is a header, scene graphs, prototypes, routes and comments. It's very important to put the header on the first line of all of your documents preceded by a # character. When the browser starts reading them it will search for the VRML's version you used, so get it right otherwise you might not get a correct response from the browser.
For version 2.0: #VRML V2.0 utf8.
And for version 1.0: #VRML V1.0 ascii.
13. Tell me what's your role in the company now? Are you working on hardware?
I'm basically doing the same things I always have been: Working with the hardware team on the next generation of our hardware and productizing stuff. I'm also making sure the company's direction is on track, which as the company grows is something that becomes very important; You can't take it for granted as much when you're just a few guys doing the same thing day after day.
14. Tell me what is Google Cardboard and how does it fit into the VR world?
Google Cardboard is basically a cardboard box that allows you attach your cell phone to the box and experience VR. You can get it for $20 at [insert link]. There are other virtual reality devices on the market, like the Samsung Gear VR. The Samsung Gear VR functions much like Google Cardboard. Your cell phone snaps into it and the VR app is automatically deployed. Another device is the Zeiss VR One, which uses the same VR apps as Google Cardboard.
15. Tell me what are the major trends driving the introduction of virtual reality systems?
Moore's law and materials science. On the Moore's law side, pretty good levels of 3D rendering have become commoditized and are already miles ahead of what we could do not so many years ago for millions of dollars. Cheap, fast computing power is thus the muscle that's driving this today. Materials science, on the other hand, is bringing us better chips, improved optics, sensors, actuators and displays. These things are driving our experiences in the virtual world and opening up great new possibilities.
16. Tell me why should we use VRML?
This language is gaining more and more acceptance as a technology for displaying 3D graphics because it's a simple and accessible way to create interactive worlds. Also an important feature is that VRML is encoded in UTF-8 (Unikey) format, similar to your web page's HTML encoded in ASCII, so you can make very detailed 3D scenes using very small files, that can be downloaded quickly - which is one of the main concerns when putting something on the internet. For example: you can make a 3D animation logo embedded on your homepage that takes much less time to be downloaded than an usual animated gif.
17. Explain me what are nodes in VRML?
Nodes are the basic blocks for creating your scene. Each kind of node has specific field, values and children statements that are always inserted between { }, so never forget to close your nodes.
18. Explain me in what ways might the virtual world enhance our personhood?
There is a grand process that has been present throughout the history of humanity that is called neoteny. This process refers to the carry-over of the child phase of life into adulthood. If you look at human history, you find that as we have become more successful, childhood has become longer. The virtual world fits into this because it helps make dreams real. Children flip between the world as they imagine it and the world as it is. But by being able to build a shared objective world that is as fluid as imagination they - and adults - can bring some of the qualities of imagination into a world that is shared with others. I believe that's what's actually started to happen. I see VR as an accelerator for the process of neoteny.
Some of the challenges as a storyteller is the limitations of the equipment. If you truly want HD 360 video you have to shoot with 16 different cameras and stitch the videos together. Sometimes these cameras will get off sync and make the process a little difficult. There are a lot of VR jams that are held, which are coming up with solutions to the challenges VR is facing.
20. Tell me how to specify the coordinates in VRML?
Tridimensional shapes and routes are described using three coordinates X, Y and Z. Cutting down simple the X-axis is left to right, the Y-axis down to up and the Z-axis is back to front. The Z-axis requires a further abstraction if you want to comprehend it in a theoretical basis, but talking practical it's just the stretching of the image.
The unit for describing the distances in your virtual world is relative, but almost everyone uses the meter unit. Of course if your making a model of a molecule you're not going to use meters but rather Angstrom.
Angles' unit is radians, this confuses some but after a while you'll get around it easily. Just remember that pi = 180º, which is approximately 3,1416 rad, so pick up your calculator and divide, nothing more to it.
A lot of them are investing in VR right now. I can't say anything specifically, but there are multibillion-dollar game development studios doing serious work in VR. But they're not the people who are here showing off demos in the hallway. They're the ones working internally to make sure it's something that's polished and that they can show and not get criticized for it because they're under a lot more scrutiny...
Games take years to make, and it's important that when we launch, it can't just be a great launch catalog and then a desert for a really long time. To be honest, for a lot of developers, they'd rather not be competing at launch with all this other software.
If, like me, you see people as sacred centers of experience that should be surrounded by a kind of moat of respect, you might find it a little creepy to find yourself in a world in which software can be connected directly to the brain. This could create extraordinary artifacts of power where some people might control a transpersonal phenomenon, while others would have no power at all. So I think it's worth being conservative about the core of personhood.
23. Explain me what is virtual reality and how does it affect today's technology?
Virtual reality is not a new medium. It's been around for decades. what's new are the viewing devices, in which you're able to view it. For decades, I had been writing, trying to marry words with pictures. With VR it's spherical video and the story is a stream that never ends. With VR you have the ability to take them inside the picture you tried to create through writing. With VR for example, our nation's veterans are able to take virtual tours of places like Washington DC to see its monuments. We're also using VR technology to take people inside homeless camps for veterans, so that people can really see how our nation's homeless veterans are living
24. Explain me are there many differences between VRML 1.0 and 2.0?
Yes, but no worries, the great majority of VRML 2.0 plugins will read your 1.0 code. Just don't forget to specify in the header which version you used.
25. Explain me how can we insert comments in VRML?
Just put the # character before your comment line, just like // for JavaScript. Remember that if your comment has two lines, you must put the # before each line!
26. Tell me what are scene graphs in VRML?
Scene graphs are a hierarchical representation of all the objects, visual and/or audio, that composes your virtual world. The representation is made through node statements that have fields and values to be determined, similar to HTML tags and their parameters.
VRML stands for Virtual Reality Modeling Language. It is an ISO/IEC language developed by a combined effort of a group of companies and 3D designers and programmers for describing 3D scenes on the Web (fortunately from the beginning the effort converged to make it standard, no such luck with HTML until W3C was created). The documents have *.WRL extensions that can be viewed by a browser with an appropriate plugin or helper-application.
28. Tell me what do you think people still don't understand about VR?
I don't think they understand why it's relevant to them yet. A lot of people, even if they know what VR is, see it as this tool to go in your basement and play Halo. I was about to correct myself and say another game, but that's what a grandmother would say: "Oh, you're going to plug it into your Nintendo and play Halo."
But that type of perception is going to change as virtual reality becomes more mainstream and they get to see things like VR cinema or 3D-360 degree panoramas or communicate with people over long distances. They're going to see this is relevant to them in their daily lives as a not-pimply-faced-teenage-kid.
29. Tell me could advances in this area trigger a significant reduction in transportation use?
If you look at humanity's carbon footprint, about 20 % of it is accounted for by transportation. So, hypothetically, we should be able to implement communication technologies that reduce the need for at least some of that movement. Yet that has obviously not happened as a result of the existence of telephony or email, or websites, or based on the current technology level of video-conferencing. So the question we have to ask is, could it happen if there were a more satisfying level of communication? I believe the answer is yes. So reducing our global carbon footprint could come down to how good an algorithm is at sensing the corner of somebody's eye. Speaking very roughly, I think that top-quality services along these lines could probably reduce humanity's global carbon footprint by a tenth in ten to fifteen years.
