Conference hydra::amiga_v1

5003.0. ""A rich mandala for me and you"..." by STAR::GUINEAU (but what was the question?) Wed Aug 28 1991 19:49

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Note 132.0       Mandala products from The Vivid Group - Toronto         1 reply
PIPE::GOOD "Michael Good"                            76 lines  27-AUG-1991 18:17
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    The Vivid Group in Toronto is offering their Mandala system in a
    variety of Amiga-based hardware and software products, as well as
    offering consulting work.  

    Mandala is a system that lets you "step right inside your television
    and become part of amazing television worlds."  It superimposes your
    image, picked up by a camera, with a computer-generated world,
    displaying the combination on an Amiga monitor.  In one of their sample
    worlds, your image is superimposed on a large drum set, so as you hit
    various instruments on the screen, it produces the appropriate sounds.

    As a camera-based system, Mandala is a descendant from Myron Krueger's
    artificial reality work in Videoplace and other systems.  As far as I
    know, this is the first camera-based presence system being offered as a
    product.

    Their complete systems are the Mandala VRS-100 and VRS-200, for
    Can$7800 and $15,800 respectively.  The VRS-100 system includes:

    Hardware components:

      - Commodore Amiga 2500HD comupter with monitor
        (includes 40 Megabyte hard drive)
      - 3 Megabytes of RAM, expandable to 9 Megabytes
      - Video genlock with RGB/NTSC video out
      - A-Squared LIVE! video digitizing board
      - Multi-port serial board
      - MIDI adaptor board, plus Multi-timbral synthesizer
      - Standard color video camera, plus complete cabling

    Software components:

      - Mandala VR Authoring Software V1.5, manual,
        tutorial video
      - A-Squared LIVE! video digitizing software
      - 12 user-ready Mandala VR environments (3 video games,
        6 musical instruments and 3 bodypaint screens)

    The VRS-200 system contains everything in the VRS-100 system plus:

      - RGB camera replaces standard color camera
      - High-end industrial laserdisc player
      - Chromakey video switcher
      - 4-channel audio mixer, plus complete cabling
      - Laserdisc containing numerous computer/video worlds

    The Mandala Virtual World Authoring Software V1.5 is available
    separately for $495.  It is compatible with all Commodore Amiga
    computers (A500, A1000, A2000 series and A3000)

    The Vivid Group also ofdfers virtual reality production and
    installation services.  Production costs for computer animated
    environments range from $1200 to $2800 per minute of interactive
    animation, depending on complexity.  Production costs for combination
    laserdisc video and computer animation worlds range from $1800 to $4800
    per minute.  Complete systems may also be rented on a daily, weekly, or
    monthly basis; daily rentals start from $550 to $950 for a single day,
    the rate decreasing as the length and number of installations increases.

    Their contact information is:

      The Vivid Group
      317 Adelaide Street West #302
      Toronto, Ontario
      Canada M5V 1P9

      Phone: 1-416-340-9290
      Fax:   1-416-348-9809

    Susan Wyshynski is VP of Marketing for The Vivid Group.  Vincent John
    Vincent and Francis MacDougall are other key people associated with
    the Mandala system.  Vincent has expressed interest in porting to other
    platforms beyond the Amiga, including the Macintosh, the IBM PC, and
    Silicon Graphics workstations.

    Mandala is a registered trademark of Very Vivid, Inc.