We introduced the term "Fish Tank VR" in our 1993 paper

Ware, C. Arthur, K., and Booth K.S. (1993) Fish Tank Virtual Reality, ACM CHI'93 Proceedings, 37-42.

The idea is to use a conventional monitor, measure head position and use this to estimate eye position and hence provide a correct perspective view of a small virtual environment. With stereo viewing a high quality monitor can provide a far more vivid, high quality VR than immersion systems such as a CAVE or head mounted display. The term Fish Tank is intended to contrast with "Immersion" and suggest a small localized workspace.

Lately we have begun using a mirror setup so that we can place the user's hand in the workspace with the manipulated object. This results in proper eye-hand coordination and this can be very valuable in performing certain tasks. For example object rotations typically take about 17-27 seconds with mouse-based 2D solutions such as the virtual trackball or the arcball. With the hand in the workspace manipulating a virtual object this can be reduced to less than two seconds under optimal conditions - an order of magnitude improvement. See

Ware, C. and Rose, J. (1999) Rotating virtual objects with real handles. ACM Transactions on CHI. Rotating virtual objects with real handles, 6(2) 162-180

Fish Tank VR with Phantom Force Feedback

We have been investigating issues relating to eye-hand coordination and touch using the apparatus shown below.

A mirror is used to reflect the monitor image so that the hand can be in the same space as the virtual environment. The Phantom force feedback device can be then used to make objects touchable. Head tracking is done using the Polhumus with the sensor mounted on the glasses frame. The NuVision stereo glasses are used to create a correct stereoscopic view.

Arsenault, R., and Ware, C. (2000) Eye-Hand Co-ordination with Force Feedback, ACM CHI'2000 Proceedings.