RESEARCH IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS AND SIMULATION AT THE INSTITUTE FOR SIMULATION AND TRAINING OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA

The Institute for Simulation and Training (IST) was created in 1984 by the University of Central Florida to provide research support to the U.S. Department of Defense in the area of simulation-based training. I n 1989, IST's Visual Systems Laboratory (VSL) was inaugurated. Focal a reas of research at VSL include distributed realtime physical simulati on, interoperability among networked simulators, the application of vi rtual environments to education, training, and design, and head-mounte d display technology. Section I describes the history of IST and VSL, and VSL's early projects. Section 2 surveys current research projects in three main areas: dynamic environments, interoperability, and virtu al environments. Section 3 describes service and educational activitie s, and Section 4 provides insight into future research plans.