The Omni-Directional Treadmill (ODT) is a revolutionary device for locomotion in large-scale virtual environments. The device allows its user to walk or jog in any direction of travel. It is the third generation in a series of devices built for this purpose for the U.S. Army's Dismounted Infantry Training Program. We first describe the device in terms of its construction and operating characteristics. We then report on an analysis consisting of a series of locomotion and maneuvering tasks on the ODT. We observed user motions and system responses to those motions from the perspective of the user. Each task is described,in terms of what causes 'certain motions to trigger unpredictable responses causing loss of balance or at least causing the user to become conscious!y aware of their movements. We donelude that the two prime shortcomings'in the ODT tie its tracking system pnd machine control 'mechanism fo: centering the user on the tieads.

The Laboratory for Human Interaction in the Virtual Environment at the Naval Postgraduate School is one of the leading groups for the comprehensive study of humans in the virtual environment. The lab builds on work completed by the NPSNET Research Group to push the edge of human interaction. The HIVE Lab is additionally working towards the acceptance of a Masters program for this work at NPS and is driving the creation of the da Vinci Consortium for the study of humans in the virtual environment.

Innovative capacity is a function of 'knowledge how', not 'knowledge what'.

The field of VR has come to another crossroad in its development. The field has spent hundreds of man years and untold millions of dollars developing technology without an explicit guiding vision. The search for the next big thing will not be ended in the focus on technology.The field of VIR must begin to focus on the user to define and refme its technology.