Computer scientists in Lancaster, Nottingham and London held a historic meeting today but none of them moved from the comfort of their own labs.
For this was virtual reality on the Internet. Participants mingled in a computer-generated meeting space where they could see each other's virtual bodies, talk to one another, and even pass one another written messages.
It's the first time such a meeting has ever been convened in the UK, and forms part of a major collaborative research programme involving the universities of Lancaster, Nottingham and Queen Mary and Westfield College, London.
Funded through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's ROPA (Realising Our Potential Award) scheme, the programme is laying the research foundations for a communications revolution.
By exploring a synthesis between virtual reality and computer networks, the researchers aim to enable people to communicate in more powerful ways than ever before. The overall programme is unique within the UK, combining for the first time experience of VR, computer supported co-operative work and the exploitation of public networks to establish a shared 'virtual laboratory.'
'The environment we have created for this first meeting is a fairly simple room with a table - a teaching lab in fact. The delegates are represented by simple shapes, can move around and explore the space, and orientate themselves in relation to the other delegates,' explained Gareth Smith, a research assistant in Lancaster's Computing Department.
'They can identify the speakers, make a contribution themselves, interrupt, take a delegate to one side and have a private conversation - all the things you would expect to be able to do at a Treal' meeting. The graphics are fairly unsophisticated, but the point is that this meeting is going on at three sites simultaneously.'
Explained Dr Steven Benford of The University of Nottingham: 'Our long term aim is to transform computer networks from being tools for exchanging information into being new kinds of places where people can work together.
'The use of virtual reality as a communications technology provides a radical alternative to today's telephone and video conferences. With virtual reality, participants are free to move around in potentially huge virtual spaces, encountering other users as well as different kinds of computer generated image.'
Though commercial exploitation is a long way off, the potential of such technology for todays jetsetting executives is clear. Explained Gareth: 'Obviously there will always be a need for conventional meetings. But is it always necessary for you to be there? With this kind of technology, people will have another option.'
This first virtual meeting used a piece of software called MASSIVE, developed at Nottingham, which allows organisations to create their own virtual meeting spaces and then connect them via 'portals' into a shared virtual universe. By the end of the project a number of more specialised virtual worlds will have been created including a virtual design studio, a virtual classroom and a virtual browser for the World Wide Web.
A larger European virtual meeting involving participants from Sweden and Germany is also planned for the spring. As Dr Mel Slater of QMW explained: 'This meeting was just the first of many.'