Grounding. The purpose of the Grounding environment is to explore the possibilities of grounding the user in a virtual environment by increasing the users sensitivity of his/her own sight and hearing. This will be done by isolating the different aspects of what is seen and heard in a virtual environment. Text, color, lighting and texture will be the focus of the visual sensory realm(s), while synthetic and natural sounds will be the focus of the sound sensory realm(s). A visitor enters the Grounding environment to explore the different realms (or wings) of the environment, each one tuning the visitors sensitivity to a sense by varying the amounts or types of sensory input along the path that the visitor takes. At the most basic level, the Grounding environment will consist of a VRML model of a space with several spaces. Music will play throughout the users visit. The spaces will have text and visuals somewhere within them. In addition to building the above described space, I expect to texture map some objects and planes, have more than one lighting scenario, and have more than one sound track or volume. I also expect to have some interactive element in the space which will trigger a change in the space. Given several months to continue this project, I would employ more Œback end technology¹. This would allow greater interactivity with the user. Ideally, a user would input some text and make some color selections before entering the space. These selections could be used to modify the space before loading. In addition, the users activity through the space could be tracked. In the Œcolor wing¹ of the space, a path would be carved out as the user moved through a colored environment, making color choices. This path could be translated to a 2D image and outputted as a record of the users visit.