Providing a low latency user experience in a high latency application

Through the use of particular visual effects, we provide a low latency user experience, even when extremely large latencies occur in an application. We demonstrate these effects in a wide-areadistributed virtual reality application. These effects include the use of motion blur, transparency, and defocusing. While the effects incur a performance penatty, the penalty is predictable, unlie the lag induced by network delays. Thus, we provide immediate feedback to each participant even when the network prevents information more useful than the fact that delays are occurring. When updates are finally receiv~ we use the same effects to provide coherent updates to the user’s information, without the jarring discontinuities that otherwise would confuse a participant’s understanding of the environment. CR