DIY Head Mounted Display Based On Movie Based On Stephen King Story

November 20, 2014 by Rich Bremer 19 Comments

Ever since [will1384] watched “The Lawnmower Man” as a wee lad, he’s been interested in virtual reality. He has been messing around with it for years and even had a VictorMaxx Stuntmaster, one of the first available head mounted displays. Years later, the Oculus Rift came out and [will1384] wanted to try it out but the $350 price tag put it just out of his price range for a discretionary purchase. He then did what most of us HaD readers would do, try building one himself, and with a goal for doing it for around $100.

The main display is a 7″ LCD with a resolution of 1024×600 pixels and has a mini HDMI input. Some DIY head mounted display projects out on the ‘web use ski goggles or some sort of elastic strap to hold the display to the wearer’s head. [will1384] took a more industrial approach, literally. He used the head mounting system from a welding helmet. This not only has an adjustable band but also has a top strap to prevent the entire contraption from sliding down. Three-dimensional parts were printed out to secure the LCD to the welding helmet parts while at the same time creating a duct to block out external light.

Inside the goggles are a pair of 5x Loupe lenses mounted between the user’s eyes and the LCD screen. These were made to be adjustable so that the wearer can dial them in for the most comfortable viewing experience. The remote mounted to the top strap may look a little out-of-place but it is actually being used to capture head movement. In addition to a standard wireless remote, it is also an air mouse with internal gyroscopes.

Seeing The World Through Depth Sensing Cameras

November 10, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 11 Comments

The Oculus Rift and all the other 3D video goggle solutions out there are great if you want to explore virtual worlds with stereoscopic vision, but until now we haven’t seen anyone exploring real life with digital stereoscopic viewers. [pabr] combined the Kinect-like sensor in an ASUS Xtion with a smartphone in a Google Cardboard-like setup for 3D views the human eye can’t naturally experience like a third-person view, a radar-like display, and seeing what the world would look like with your eyes 20 inches apart.

[pabr] is using an ASUS Xtion depth sensor connected to a Galaxy SIII via the USB OTG port. With a little bit of code, the output from the depth sensor can be pushed to the phone’s display. The hardware setup consists of a VR-Spective, a rather expensive bit of plastic, but with the right mechanical considerations, a piece of cardboard or some foam board and hot glue would do quite nicely.

[pabr] put together a video demo of his build, along with a few examples of what this project can do. It’s rather odd, and surprisingly not a superfluous way to see in 3D. You can check out that video below.

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Interacting With Virtual Reality Brings Us Even Closer To A Real Holodeck

October 3, 2014 by James Hobson 6 Comments

One of our readers has been playing around with virtual reality lately, and has come up with a pretty cool beta run of his research — virtual interaction using your hands.

Using an Oculus Rift, the Leap Motion controller and a beta run of Unity 4.6, [Tomáš Mariančík] put together a test environment for physical interaction. The Leap Motion controller is capable of tracking your fingers with extremely high detail, which allows him to create a pair of virtual hands inside the test environment that almost perfectly mimic his movements. The hack here is making it all work together.

In the following demo he shows off by interacting with holographic menus, grabbing body parts off of anatomically correct human being (thanks to Unity3D), and manipulating his environment.

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Virtual Reality Expands Into The World Of Rollercoasters With ‘The Augmented Thrill Ride Project’

September 4, 2014 by Matt Terndrup 22 Comments

A rollercoaster company in Germany called Mack Rides joined forces with a team of virtual reality developers in the spring of 2014 to create an experience like no other.

The idea came from [Thomas], a professor at the University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern who was working in the department of Virtual Design at the time. The thought of extending a real rollercoaster ride with an Oculus Rift was an intriguing one, so he approached Mack Rides with the experiment, and the ground-breaking research began.

Hundreds of tests were done over the following weeks and months, which provided insight into how we perceive time and space while inside VR. This led to some interesting discoveries. For one, the VR track inside the Rift could be more complex than the real one. This meant that the directions could be contorted into different angles without the user feeling much of a difference. Knowing this, the developers were able to unfold/extend the track well beyond what was possible in real life.

Another epiphany had to do with the rails, which actually didn’t have to be present in VR at all. In fact, it was better if the tracks weren’t there because the experience was much more exciting not knowing which way the ride was suddenly going to take. This made things exponentially more surprising and compelling.

By far the most startling revelation was the reduction in dizziness and motion sickness during the tests. This was attributed to the complex synchronization that the mind goes through when melding together g-forces and the actual rollercoaster rides with the virtual ones displayed inside the Oculus Rift.

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VR Bowling Game Combines An Oculus Rift With A Wii Remote

August 13, 2014 by Matt Terndrup 5 Comments

[marclar83] was given an Oculus Rift so that he could prepare for an upcoming conference presentation. He began to download demos, getting familiar with the VR interface but was disappointed to find out that someone hadn’t developed a good virtual reality bowling experience yet. This prompted him to design a VR game that integrates a Wii Remote, recording the movements of the controller and sending accelerometer data to his computer.

The game he created is similar to Wii Sports Bowling but with the added bonus of being immersed in a virtual world with the Oculus Rift. The D-pad on the Wii Remote was programmed to switch stances and bowling methods, allowing the user to choose whether they want to throw the ball down the middle or curve it a long the way. Pressing the trigger button on the back started the swinging motion, and when released, the bowling ball shot down the alley at a high rate of speed crashing into the pins at the end.

Because the game was designed on the original DK1, the resolution of the images was a challenge that needed to be addressed, but [marclar83] solved this problem by implementing two user interfaces on the side of the screen that showed replays and depicted how many pins remained; proving to be a better experience for the gamer. This free public alpha version was made available for Windows, Mac, and Linux on the official VRBowling website. A video describing the project can be seen below. Continue reading “VR Bowling Game Combines An Oculus Rift With A Wii Remote” →

Testing VR Limits With A Raspberry Pi

August 7, 2014 by Matt Terndrup 15 Comments

vrpi

Virtual Reality by function pushes the boundaries of what we perceive as existence, tricking the mind into believing that the computer generated environment that the user is thrust into actually contains a real place. So in the spirit of seeing what is possible in VR, a developer named [Jacques] hooked up a Raspberry Pi to an Oculus Rift. He used a computer graphics rendering API called OpenGL ES, which is much like any mobile platform found these days, to render a floating, rotating cube.

All his tests were done on a Release build which utilized the official vertex and fragment shaders. There was no attempt to optimize anything; not like there would be much to do anyways. The scene was rendered twice at 16 milliseconds per frame. From there, he attempted 27 ms per frame with texture, followed by 36 ms/frame, and then 45.

The code used can be found on [Jacques]’s Github account. A simple improvement would use a Banana Pi for better processing speed. However, don’t expect any spectacular results with this type of setup. Really, the project only proves that it’s possible to minimize a VR experience into something that could become portable. And in the same vein, the Pi + Oculus integration can produce an uncomfortable lagging effect if things are not lined up properly. But once the energy/computing power issues are addressed, VR devices could transform into a more fashionable product like Google Glass, where a simple flip of a switch would toggle the view between VR and AR into a something more mixed. And then a motion sensing input camera like this Kinect-mapping space experiment could allow people all over the world to jump into the perspectives of other reality-pushing explorers. That’s all far down the line though, but this project lays the foundation for what the future might hold.

To see [Jacques]’s full set up, view the video after the break.

Continue reading “Testing VR Limits With A Raspberry Pi” →

Hackaday Links: August 3, 2014

August 3, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 70 Comments

A ton of people sent in this video of crazy Russians who have taken a microwave, removed the magnetron, taped it to a broom, and turned it on. Don’t try this at home. Or near us.

You know the Google Cardboard kit that’s a real VR headset made of cardboard (and a smart phone)? Google may have gotten their inspiration from Oculus, because every Oculus Rift DK2 ships with a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 inside.

Ever design a PCB and be disappointed by the quality of the silkscreen? [Paul Allen] has been defining the edges of his PCB labels with the copper layer, and the examples are dramatic. Etching copper is what you actually pay for when you fab a board, so it should come as no surprise that the quality is a little higher.

Dunk tanks are fun, but how about competitive dunk tanks? [Chad] built a dunk tank (really more of a ‘dunk shower’) out of a 2×4 tripod, a garbage can, and a few parts from a the toilet aisle of Home Depot’s plumbing department. Then he built a second. Set up both dunk showers across from each other, give two people a few balls, and see who gets soaked last. Looks fun.

Want a MAME cabinet, but don’t want it taking up room in your house? Build a MAME coffee table! Here’s the reddit thread. Maybe we’re old-fashioned, but we’d rather have a giant NES controller coffee table.

Last week we saw a 16-bobbin rope braiding machine, but odd braiding machines like this aren’t limited to fibers. Here’s a wire twisting machine for making RS422 cables. It only produces a single twisted pair, but that’s really all you need to create a cable. Somebody get some paracord and make some Cat5.