virtual reality

135 Articles

Where Is My *%$#! Virtual Reality Display?

June 7, 2012 by 75 Comments

For years I’ve been asking, loudly and frequently, where’s my F*&#$%ing virtual reality?  I realize that many of us, depending on what influenced our dreams of VR will have different definitions, so let me elaborate. When I was a kid, I played Dactyl Nightmare at the Union station in St. Louis. You stepped inside this “stage”, donned a massive clunky headache inducing HMD, and brandished a floating joystick of doom to challenge other players and a flying Pterodactyl.  I was awe struck. My 12 year old brain decided that this was the future.

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VR! Now With More Kinect, Wiimote, And Vuzix

January 25, 2011 by 24 Comments

Those of us that remember when you could actually go to a mall and play on a VR game machine, tend to remember it fondly. What happened? The computing horsepower has grown so much, our graphics now days are simply stunning, yet there’s been no major VR revival. Yeah, those helmets were huge and gave you a headache, but it was worth it.  With the 3d positioning abilities of the latest game crazes, the Wiimote and the Kinect, [Nao_u] is finally taking this where we all knew it should have gone(google translated). Well, maybe we would have had less creepy anime faces flying around squirting ink, but the basics are there. He has created a VR system utilizing the Wiimote for his hand position, a Vuzix display for head positioning, and the kinect for body tracking. Even with the creepy flying heads I want to play it, especially after seeing him physically ducking behind boxes in the video after the break. Long live VR!

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Well-balanced Flight Simulator

November 18, 2010 by 8 Comments

Here’s a flight simulator which uses concepts simple enough for anyone to build. As you pilot your virtual craft, the cockpit you’re sitting in moves as well. But unlike some of the more extreme simulator builds we’ve seen, this uses basic materials and simple concepts to provide that motion. Its center of gravity is balanced on a base frame. The joystick slides as you move the nose of the craft up and down, shifting the center of gravity causing the cockpit to tilt as well. The pilot sees the simulated flight through a wearable display. There is a stationary reference in front of him which allows the system to measure head movements, panning and tilting the virtual display to match. Check out the overview video after the break, or click through to the page linked above and watch all 22 episodes of the video build log.

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I’m One Step Closer To Azeroth

April 1, 2010 by 31 Comments

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?

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CES: Augmented Reality

January 9, 2010 by 7 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB-kZmq0syc]

I got my hands on a set of augmented reality glasses that were displayed with a Monkey-Ball style game. This wasnt anything too new as far as the augmented reality goes, however the glasses that were used with the game featured stereo cameras on the center of the outside of the lens, which allowed a true 3D augmented vision that you wouldn’t have to stare into a screen for. These glasses were still in the demo stage, but if they ever make it out into retail, I think that they would be exactly what could bridge AR from a fun toy to a useful tool. Another review video after the break.

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Biking Through Google Street View

November 11, 2009 by 49 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdWwtApn6aI]

[Aki] wanted to do some stationary cycling to get in shape. Unfortunately, his stationary cycle is located in his garage which doesn’t supply much inspiration or amusement. His solution was to build a VR rig so that he could ride around inside google street view. He has rigged a simple sensor to his wheel to determine his speed and he’s using a vuzix VR 920 as a display and orientation sensor. While he notes that it isn’t perfect, or even reliable, we think it is pretty cool. He can go sight-seeing, while getting in shape from his own garage. We have to wonder if he gets a headache after a while though.

Lego Head Tracking

April 3, 2009 by 11 Comments

lego_tracking

[Epoch] Sent in this simple head tracking project using Lego pieces. He’s made a custom mount to hold 3 Lego light sensors on a baseball cap. Then, after modifying his webcam for IR with some floppy disk scraps, he loads up the free-track software and can control his games. For convenience, he has programmed the Lego Nxt to only turn on the lights while he’s holding a contact sensor. You can see it in action after the break. This appears to be very similar to [Johnny Lee’s] head tracking. Judging by the video, it’s not as smooth though.

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