ABSTRACT
Computer graphics came of age in the late 1970s when the classic flythrough of Chicago was developed by the architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (Deken, 1983). Until then, visualizations of large-scale artifacts were esoteric, static affairs that simply provided snapshots of real or imagined structures with little or no user interaction other than through offline preparation of data and designs. Although computer aided design (CAD) began in earnest soon after microcomputers were invented, software such as AutoCad remained at the level of the advanced drafting package until machines became fast enough to allow users to interact with and change designs ‘on-the-fly’. Simultaneously, the idea that users could ‘immerse’ themselves within the computer environment used to visualize such designs – so-called virtual reality (VR) – was being fast developed with the first headmounted displays and interactive gloves emerging at much the same time as the first primitive CAD packages (Rheingold, 1991). After almost twenty years of intense development, both CAD and VR are now largely interchangeable but their convergence has been somewhat narrow. This has been mainly restricted to single user interaction with an emphasis on better and more realistic rendering of scenes rather than the development of any specific functionality that makes CAD and VR special purpose tools for better analysis, decision making or design.
