SINGAPORE, July 19: Ideas for new businesses in cyberspace keep sprouting even as users, providers and governments grapple with issues of security and shortage of bandwidth.

One company in Singapore is dangling another carrot before businesses, education institutions and other bodies on how to promote themselves on the Internet.

VRT Singapore Pte Ltd aims to make all your virtual dreams come true.

From Saturday, Internet surfers will be able to visit Virtual Singapore, modelled after an area in the island state's financial district.

It stretches from Fullerton Building, in a square targeted for hotel development, to the popular Boat Quay riverside bars and restaurants flanked by the imposing towers of leading banks and skyscraper office blocks.

With the click of a mouse, a personal computer user can explore the area on foot or hop on a river cruise.

At Fullerton Building, a casino beckons. Or would you rather try the poolroom?

When you enter the interior of a building, you might be "cooled" by swirling ceiling fans and even get a snack from a vending machine.

Short of cash, click on an ATM machine. All in real time.

Later on, VRT will add links to local events like Singapore's National Day Parade and international events.

How does a business cash in?

Through advertising on specific active areas of the site, said Aroon Tan, regional manager of VRT Singapore.

And no advertising copy or jingles needed. For instance, a bank can use its logo on its building in the area to link to its own web site to promote its own services.

Or license a feature like the casino or poolroom to be ported to your web site. The one-time license fee is between S$1,200 ($828) and S$1,500, Tan said.

VRT can also custom-make your own virtual sites costing from S$5,000 upwards.

All transactions will be between the user and the company concerned, Tan said.

"We're dealing with a very new technology," Tan said, when asked just how successful virtual reality marketing would be.

VRT Singapore expects to rake in S$2 Million revenue in the first year after spending some S$400,000-600,000 in developing this virtual reality site.

It is talking to numerous companies and organisations and hopes to strike deals with five to six parties in the coming months, Tan said.

Using software from virtual reality designer Superscape VRPlc, Virtual Singapore is efficiently designed so that it is in small files to enable fairly fast access. A server in Singapore by September will also be a boon to the site.

And as Singapore's island-wide multimedia broadband network comes on stream in stages into the year 2004, Virtual Singapore would get more and more life-like.

Real-time screening of videos and video conferencing using 3D representations called avatars are possibilities.

Tan says Virtual Singapore has "emotion" -- compared to other VRT-developed virtual cities of Dieburg and Berlin in Germany. The Singapore site appears more multi-dimensional with features like the cruise on the river.

Texture would improve as technology advances.

And as prices of peripherals fall, users should be able to don headsets and gloves hooked up to the PC and "feel" the virtual surrounding and discern height and depth.

Virtual Singapore is targeted at businesses and organisations operating in Asia. VRT expects to open an office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with a development team in early 1998 and mulling similar setups in Thailand and Indonesia.

Tan sees the pioneering efforts of VRT, started in Germany in 1992, spawning future generations of virtual reality designers and professionals.

Tan, 26, studied architecture and worked as an interior designer before being roped in by VRT.

VRT is all excited about a project called B3000 which stands for "Beyond 3000" that will be a highly complicated scenario engaging a global community, Tan said.The pilot launch is expected in the next 12 months. VRT envisages that B3000 will communicate by voice and even simulate different weather and daylight and nightfall.

"B3000 will become a genre... it will be a completely different way of approaching a gaming environment. It will be like the way Space Invaders were to arcade games," Tan said.

VRT's homepage is at http://www.vrt.com.sg

Virtual Singapore is at http://www.singapore.vrt.com.sg

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.