Long-term goals

Eventually, VTP hopes to include elements of physical simulation, character animation, ecological and geophysical modelling, and information visualization / data mining.  Ultimately, we envision moving toward the ideals set forth by Buckminster Fuller's Geoscope or Gelernter's Mirror Worlds: a live, fully-interactive representation of the entire world as a source of education and insight.

VTP's work is predicated on the assumption that better access to and visualization of information, improving the overall spatial literacy of society, may permit a more democratic and therefore more equitable approach to the solution of complex problems.

In the area of human-computer interface, the VTP should eventually complement the fullest synergy of conventional mouse/keyboard-based metaphors with the massive preexisting interface of natural language, as HCI pioneers such as Brenda Laurel have evoked:

The world was grey and silent before Brenda spoke.
"Give me an April morning on a Meadow," she said, and the gray was replaced by morning sunshine. Patches of cerulean sky were visible between the redwood branches. Birds chirped. Brooks babbled.

Bonnie DeVarco wrote a farther-out big-picture view, Earth as A Lens, which shows the historical context in which VTP is emerging.

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