Friday, April 2,1993
By Jim Detjen INQUIRER STAFF WHITER
You're outmatched and you know it.
Your opponent, the Iceman, is at least a foot taller than you and plays a wicked game of one-on-onc basketball. But your pride is at stake and the game is being televised. The Iceman leads, 17-15. Only six seconds remain in the game.
You dribble once and launch a high-arcing shot. The Iceman deflects the ball, but you're able to grab it. As the announcer calls out, "Four, three, two ..." you throw up a! desperation shot.
It bounces twice on the rim' and then, miraculously, goes in. A three-point shot! You win, 18-17! The crowd goes wild!
With America's hoop mania about to peak during this weekend's finals of the NCAA men's basketball championship, another form of the game makes its national debut at the Franklin Institute today.
It is Virtual Basketball, a form of cyberspace hoops. You dribble and shoot and build up a sweat on a stage in the museum's Futures Center.
'In person, your opponent and the basketball are invisible. You play the game in a vigorous form of pantomime. But on a widescreen TV not far from the stage, you, your opponent and the game all look very real.
r"We expect this to be one of the most popular games we've ever had," said Edward Wagner, coordinator of the Albert M. Greenfield Cutting Edge Gallery, where the game is being demonstrated. "As we've been working out the bugs this week, the public has been watching in fascination: People have been lining up to get a chance to try out this game." The game, known as "Jump Shot," has been designed by computer programmers at Corporate Communications Group, a New York City-based company that specializes In developing new interactive media. The game utilizes two 486 personal computers, a video camera and laser disks to create the illusion of a live basketball game on TV.
"In this game, you never get hit in the eye by your opponent nor wind up in a fight," said Tim O'Donnell, the company's chairman. "But you really can get a workout and build up a sweat."
Participants put on a colored glove and climb onto a blue stage in front of a blue screen. Suddenly the image of you inside a locker room appears op the TV screen. You touch three yellow squares and a computer creates an opponent matched to your size.
The locker room door opens. You move down a hallway and enter the court. And there, standing before you is one of two rather intimidating-looking players, either the Jammer or the Iceman.
Jump shot is an example of virtual reality, a three-dimensional computer technology that lets participants enter alternative worlds.
As computers have grown in sophistication, so has the complexity of these virtual worlds.
NASA is using virtual reality (sometimes known as artificial reality or cyberspace) to train astronauts for space-walks. IBM and Chrysler Corp. arc using it to test automotive designs of proposed 1997 cars. And the Pentagon has used it to train
Fake to the right. Fake left. It's all fake.
Basketball enters domain of cyberspace
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Virtual reality allows Tyreem Williams, 12, of Philadelphia, to be the basketball star he dreams of being. He tests his skills by shooting an invisible ball toward a projected hoop. The widescreen TV at the Franklin Institute shows Tyreem what he can do as a cyberspace athlete.
soldiers to maneuver tanks in realistic battles in the Iraqi desert.
"Virtual reality enables people to learn much faster than through traditional methods," O'Donnell said.
"Instead of just watching something, you actually participate in it. The retention of new information is much, much higher." While a variety of virtual reality
technologies arc being developed, experts say all have at least two things in common. First, they use a variety of senses — sight, sound and often touch — to make the experience real. Second, they are interactive, enabling participants to test out the limits of their new worlds.
Computers and video technology make virtual reality possible.
In the virtual basketball game, a computer projects images of your opponent and the basketball court onto a TV screen. A video-camera captures your image in front of the screen and projects it onto the televised court.
The computer responds to the movements of your colored glove — placing an orange basketball in your band on the screen. As your hand moves, your opponent reacts to your actions. He can deflect shots or grab the ball. If your shot is hopelessly off, the announcer shouts "Airball!"
But if you outmanoeuvre the Iceman and shoot the ball with the proper angle, the ball drops in. The announcer booms out the score. And the audience cheers.
'The game follows the laws of physics." O'Donnell said. "Like video games, you can develop winning strategies."
O'Donnell said the possibilities of virtual reality are limited only by the imagination.
They might someday bo used to give a quadriplegic the sensation of hiking through the woods. They could enable people to explore the ocean floor, black holes or worlds where the conventional laws of physics do not apply.
O'Donnell said virtual reality might make it possible for people to compete with each other in sporting events around the world without leaving their home towns.
Two people might enter health clubs in San Francisco and Philadelphia for a game of "virtual racquet-ball."
"They would sweat, share in the experience with each other and afterwards relax together," he said. "But all the while they would be 3,000 miles apart."
If You Go
Jump shot will be on display at the Franklin Institute. 20th Street and the Parkway, through April 23.
The Philadelphia Inquirer / AKIRA SUWA
Edward M. Wagner of the Franklin Institute introduces the computers that generate virtual basketball in the Cutting Edge Gallery.