Virtual Reality, Virtual Eternity

In the opening scene of an episode of the TV show "Star Trek" almost a decade and a half ago Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein discussed the nature of the universe. In 3001 -A Space Odessey, astronaut David Poole returns to the Earth of his childhood presented as a virtual world.

A new research project between the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Central Florida in Orlando may soon make such imaginary conversations a reality, where their 3-D, life-sized representations looked you in the eye, examined your body language, considered voice nuances and phraseology of your questions, then answered you in a way that is so real you would swear the images were alive. This enhanced virtual reality world will use artificial intelligence with technology from computer games, animation and artificial intelligence.

The U of Illinois Electronic Visualization Laboratory will build a state-of-the-art motion-capture studio to digitalize the image and movement of real people who will go on to live a virtual eternity in virtual reality. Knowledge will be archived into databases. Voices will be analyzed to create synthesized but natural-sounding "virtual" voices. Mannerisms will be studied and used in creating the 3-D virtual forms, known technically as avatars.

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