RALEIGH — Two new Triangle companies have come up with a way to make presentations many of us have to sit through at work more enjoyable and more informational. OnLine reporter Tom Lawrence shows us how to use a computer to bring virtual reality to a presentations.

Presentations are a part of business, government and education, but it's difficult to make complicated data visually interesting. VRCharts fromAlterVuecreates virtual reality charts for the desktop and projection. Michael Neacsu, ElectroHouse[Virtual Reality] is used in gaming and entertainment. It's transformed other industries, and we anticipate it'll also transform business usage, too.

VRCharts allows users to make information interactive, unlike two dimensional charts. Nick Nickerson, AlterVueThere's no ability to interact with those charts that you're making your presentation with. And what we provide is the interactive nature and the portability, the moving around within the environment that's been created.

AlterVue has created some trademarked charts as part of the package. They allow very complicated information to be more easily understood.

With a mouse, presenters can manipulate images any way they wish. Nickerson says learning how to do it is easy. In fact, he says anyone who can make a two-dimensional chart using Excel or Lotus 123 can learn how to do VR in five or 10 minutes.

Nickerson's hope is that VRCharts will take the "yawns" out of meetings.

AlterVue begins marketing VRCharts next month. The program will be available on CD-ROM or it can be downloaded from the Internet.