Homes or buildings that utilize technology in order to be 'smart', computer augmented, automated, `intuitive', energy efficient and environmentally conscious or just convenient have been in existence since the mid 1980's. The technology used has ranged from simple timers that control household appliances at designated times during the day, to computer control of office environments.
In the latter, the goal has been to hide the computers in the environment while providing support for humans in their every day activities. There are already many instances (some more successful than others) where humans have used computers in this manner. These computers have been hidden inside everyday appliances and equipment like automobiles and VCRs. It is interesting to observe that appliances that are the most difficult to use are typically those that have the most computer-like interface (e.g. VCRs and microwave ovens), whereas the ones that are easiest to use are those that hide the computer interface (e.g. cars and refrigerators).
With this in mind, it seems that the next level of development is to completely do away with the box we traditionally call the 'computer'. Hence, rather than sitting in front of a machine and explicitly programming a computer, the interface is assimilated into the environment thereby becoming ubiquitous. This is not a new idea- Xerox has been pursuing research in this area for a number of years with their active-badge technology [8].
We believe the CAVE is a fascinating possibility for use as a prototyping tool for these types of environments. As we all know, architectural walkthroughs are considered the 'killer application' for virtual reality, and the CAVE is one of the better ones for this. We decided it would be interesting to take the next step in architectural walkthroughs, and put some intelligence inside the architectural models- in essence providing a virtual reality test-bed for designing and debugging 'smart' environments.
One environment and experiment that we have been considering is the computer augmentation of the beamline control system at Argonne's Advanced Photon Source. The beamline is a resource for scientists who conduct xray crystallography. The operation of the beamline and experiment hardware and software requires a complex series of specific steps which result in the gathering and analysis of gigabytes of data. Since the beamline is a time-shared facility, users operate under strict time constraints which require them to work 24 hours a day for a period of about four days. These stringent conditions, in the least, lead to user fatigue. However, fatigue can lead to user error in the handling of hardware that can result in costly damage of equipment. For example, forgetting to place a beam stop before firing the beam line can destroy a 100,000 detector. In addition, mistakes caused by fatigue can induce errors in data collection which may eventually corrupt entire experimental results. Expressed in monetary terms, an eight hour shift at both the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne and the Structural Biology Center at Brookhaven costs the experimenters at least two thousand dollars plus the cost or investment in time to develop the project. It is these types of errors which we propose could be avoided through the implementation of computer augmented environments.
Because there are a sequence of stereotypical steps each user executes regardless of the experiment, computer environments could serve as a fail-safe mechanism which alert users of a forgotten step and thereby prevent the loss of an experiment.