While looking for a way to injure his neck and live in the World of Warcraft all at once, [Gavan Woolery] came up with the idea for this virtual reality setup. That monitor, residing just inches from his eyes, is putting out 1080p at 120Hz. His plan is to pair up the motion sensing seen in the video after the break with an NVIDIA 3D Vision Kit for something close to total immersion.
To be fair, [Gavan] never mentions WoW, but we all know where this is going right?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OHlaVNOKGM]
Cool love it I am building one!is that the track IR you are using for head tracking?
Part of me wanted him to tip over when he leaned down to look at the ground.
Shrink it down, and I’m in for one.
if this isn’t an aprils fools joke its really cool
I predict that he’ll develope motion sickness followed by some projectile vomiting onto that screen.
And, there’ll be lots of splash back, of course.
Good Times !!!
Could be, I rigged up something interesting about a year ago using a PSP, but the resolution was not high enough. Actually my next try was going to be using a projector. it’s a lot lighter to hang something thin to reflect off or onto then a screen.
I got neck ach watching the video i’d hate to be wearing that for anything over 5 mins. couldnt you just add movement sensors onto a pair of those gogles with screens in them i know there pricey but i think neck ach is a bigger price to pay. other than that its pretty good.
It’s sad to see people with mental disabilities having access to money and technology.
i dont trust it. its an april fools thing, gotta be.
This IS an April fools joke, as goggles would do a MUCH better job, sans neck strain.
For a joke, it actually works pretty well. Perhaps you could balance the weight of the LCD with a counterweight hanging behind you?
At least it doesn’t use an Arduino.
Hmm why don’t heads-up display manufacturers incorporate 3d shutter glasses into their glasses? That’s pretty much this guys Idea but smaller, lightweight, and convenient.
@soopergooman You wouldn’t need shutters. Just different images for each eye.
M4CGYV3R, it looks like he set up a counterweight and shoulder pads so all the weight is on his shoulders instead of his neck. I’m not sure how much that would help though.
@Colin
Actually thats why 120hz screens are made, 60hz for each eye (using shuttered glasses) producing the 3D “effect”.
I’ll never be calling any video true 3D until I can walk around the object without something tricking my brain.
I take it he has no girlfriend, unless of coarse she resides virtually in WOW.
It’s, probably, an April fools joke but there’s no reason it can’t be fully functional too. The joke part is how heavy and unwieldy it is. In principle, what he claims to have done would be pretty easy to set up. The problem is that headgear over 1.5 pounds has been shown to, potentially, cause serious repetitive stress neck injuries if used for extended periods of time.
Thanks all for your comments — dumb a hack as it is, it is actually NOT an April Fools joke (great timing on my part, I know). It uses NVIDIA’s shutter glasses — I have a pair, but did not use them in the video because it would just look like a blur on the screen to you. Also, it IS counterbalanced and most of the weight is on my shoulders :) — that said, read my blog at kiwi64.com, it is not intended to be a practical solution.
You might want to try mounting the ir clip a little more towards the center of the monitor as the TrackIR software is optimized for a smaller object, aka a sphere the size of a head, I think you’ll get a bit more accurate head movement that way. As soon as affordable video goggles with a resolution higher than 1024X784 become available I plan on doing a similar project.
I’m having an instant headache from just imagining having to focus that close up for hours on end, and still seeing blocky pixels because the display is only 1080p.
I wonder if you’d end up permanently cross-eyed with this.
What happend to LCD glasses or head mount vr display thingos? Its like they died in the early 90’s
@Vince — It’s a common misconception, but humans actually can’t see in 3D. We see stereo vision 2D and our brains build a 3D image out of it.
Since nothing you ever *see* will actually be better than stereo vision 2D, what we have now is just as “3D” as what you see with your eyes everyday.
What *you* seem to be complaining about is actually not the objects “not being 3d” but about lack of user interaction. (Ex: My head is in spot x, I want to see from the pov of spot x.)
Personally I think this is kind of a dumb want, and useless outside of video games. (Movies have directors for a reason, they choose the angles, it’s an art. You wouldn’t want to see less than the person sitting next to you in a theatre because the angle wasn’t right, that’s dumb.)
However, if you wanted *your* 3D really badly, it could be accomplished just fine with head tracking, like in the video in this post.
Either way, I for one, love the 3D we have right now and think it’s awesome.
Nice, I want to do this with my 52″ TV !
This looks bulky and stupid right now.
But what about if you replace the monitor with a 3D capable paper screen like HP were demoing not so long ago. so the system would remain ultra light.
You could also have it curve round to include more of your peripheral vision.
Looks dorky, but id like to give it a go :)
This tech is awesome indeed, but he should investigate twin smaller screens and a front surface mirror.
If you put the LCD(s) on top of your head and use a front-surface mirror in front of each eye it will be lighter.
The counterweight should be attached to the ceiling or a bar above the helmet to remove the weight entirely from the User.
See here http://picasaweb.google.com/nubie07/3DHeadMountedDisplay# for some ideas, also note that you can use side-by-side 3d and a prism viewer to make both eyes think they are seeing the same image.
I wish the HMD market would come up with good displays, there isn’t really a good 720p 3D HMD or goggles, as there should be.
With 3D each eye sees a different picture, so you don’t need 1080p per eye, double 720p is sufficiently high resolution, especially if you have head tracking.
TrackIr is great, or FreeTrack if you don’t want to pay, or can’t pay.
I have built a 6 degrees of freedom FreeTrack with old TV Remote LEDs and a webcam. I used it on Live For Speed demo and it was pretty neat, impossible to drive, but if you sat still you could actually rise out of the seat a little and look around the car.
Very immersive.
WOW! A new type of birth control.
No female will get to within 30ft of this guy.
Almost forgot my StereoMirror setup from a couple years ago, you don’t need to shell out for nVidia’s hardware solution, think outside the box:
http://picasaweb.google.com/nubie07/StereoMonitorStand#5165437677970053378
Sadly nVidia dropped the stereomirror support from their drivers around this time, but iZ3D is another company that offers Stereoscopic drivers (sadly a 30-day trial, but still fun to play with):
http://www.iz3d.com/driver
You can still do some retro-gaming on nVidia if you have a card prior to the 8 series, the 7900GS is a sick overclocker (I ran mine on a 50% core overclock for the last 3 years), use the old stereo supporting driver. Older games are not too shabby in stereoscopic because of the immersion you get.
this isnt at all like blizzards april fools joke:
http://us.blizzard.com/store/details.xml?id=1100000922
hmmm
I thought about using mirrors, and also a projector instead of a monitor (projecting onto a large spherical surface around you). Ultimately I avoided mirrors because I thought they might take away from the immersion (wobbling creates weird side effects, and bits of dust or smears can also throw off your senses). Glad to see everybody is thinking about this though :)
he could put a fresnel lens between he and lcd, and even short the distance. that provide a huge image.
I hope you have a good eye doctor…and you might want to look into a chiropractor also! But I guess with all the money you will save on a VR helmet…this is a no brainer!
Hello, I am von the future, you don’t need this anymore ;)