na, a haptic interface enables a physician's assistant or a nurse to conduct a diagnostic examination remotely and transmit that information to an expert physician at a distant location. Teleimmersion Virtual reality involves teleimmersion, which is the combination of real and virtual environments for purposes of display or interaction. The main applications of tele- immersion include telemeetings, teletraining, collaborative engineering and design, medical applications, and entertainment services. Introduction With teleimmersion, a sea of hidden cameras provides many points of view that are compared to create a three-dimensional model of users and their surround- ings. The cameras can be hidden behind tiny perforations in a screen or placed on the ceiling, in which case the display screen must also serve as a selectively reflec- tive surface. Teleimmersion also involves shared simulation objects. These objects appear in the space between users and can be manipulated as if they were working models. Teleimmersion is being used to find better techniques to combine models developed by people on different ends of a dialogue, using incompatible local soft- ware design tools. Another factor in teleimmersion is imperceptible structured light. To the naked eye, it looks like standard white illumination, but it projects unnoticeably brief flickerings of patterns that help computers make sense of otherwise featureless visual expanses. Current prototypes of the necessary screen use two overlapping projections of polarized images and require users to wear polarized glasses SO that each image is seen by only one eye. This technique will be replaced in the future by autostereoscopic displays that channel images to each eye differently, without the need for glasses. Finally, there are plans for interface design features, such as a virtual mirror, which would allow users to check how they and their environment appear to oth- ers. As an example, a user may choose to appear in more formal clothing than he or she is wearing in real