The Concept and Design of a Virtual Laboratory

Lynn Mercer, Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz, and James Hanan
University of Regina

Abstract

In this paper we introduce the concept of a virtual laboratory as an electronic metaphor for a "real" lab. The virtual laboratory allows the user to discover knowledge through simulated experiments guided by hypertext documents. It contains all the elements of a good physical laboratory: a wide range of objects and tools which can be assembled into experiments, a reference book, and a notebook for recording thoughts, inspirations, results and conclusions. The concept is illustrated by an example of a laboratory design.

Reference

Lynn Mercer, Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz, and James Hanan. The Concept and Design of a Virtual Laboratory. In Proceedings of Graphics Interface 1990, pp. 149-155, 1990.

Download PDF here (6Mb)