AN INTERACTIVELY CONFIGURABLE VIRTUAL WORLD-SYSTEM

In the course of the development of the ''Hyper Hospital,'' a novel me dical care system constructed in the computerized information network using virtual reality as its human interface, we devised a virtual rea lity world creating system which allows users to configure the world i nteractively. The re-configuration of the virtual world was designed t o be carried out without interruptions of activity and the world can c ontinue to exist during the reconfiguration process. This facility com prises an important part of our Hyper Hospital system because one of o ur major goals of this proposal of the Hyper Hospital is to restore ma ximum freedom for patients in the medical care system. Discussion was given in the present study with respect to the basic requirements of t he system to be realized, including discussions on the permission give n to the participants of different levels, and means by which to modif y the structure of the virtual world. A preliminary implementation was described following this general consideration. The developed prototy pe was shown to be practically suitable to the test of our virtual env ironment applied to realistic medical scenes.