Introduction - beyond walkthroughs

Virtual Reality (VR), characterized by real-time simulation and presentation of, and interaction with a virtual 3D world, offers a new quality of presentation and interaction. It has been applied to architectural design in the form of so called walkthrough applications. The application of virtual reality to other industrial area, e.g. mechanical engeneering, is just beginning. But, as a lot of studies and sample applications from the research and industry have already shown, there is a great potential in this area (e.g. [Grebner&May95, Dai et.al.96]). It is therefore important now to develop technology and applications to meet practical industrial requirements. In the following, I will discuss the main aspects of this development briefly.