At NASA/JSC, researchers must choose visual display devices that best fit ground training applications in a virtual environment (VE) system. Two major display devices are a 3.7-meter spherical dome equipped with an Elumens projector and a VR4 head-mounted display (HMD). They differ in many aspects, such as quality of stereo, field of view, level of immersion, resolution, and the interfaces and interactions. Finally, the related human factor issues, especially subject performance, are not well identified.

       A virtual environment system was developed to assist in the comparison of the relative merits of these two different delivery systems based on pick-and-release tasks. The rendering engine is an SGI Octane SSE computer. The virtual environment system supports pick-and-release tasks. Multiple hardware devices, such as a joystick, a LogiTech three-dimensional mouse, and a head-tracker, are integrated to support the interactions. Audio stimuli, besides visual channels, are added to form a multi-sensory system.

       The main evaluation software is designed to facilitate fast integration of existing applications. It uses OpeGL Performer-based functions and objects. Several user-friendly interfaces are also developed to help in carrying out the evaluators' operations. The system has the potential to serve as a tool with which to build additional evaluation experiments.