[4eyes] [Translist] vr/ar kickstarters

[Graham Wakefield]

I received an Oculus Rift dev kit a couple of weeks ago, maybe it would be useful to share the first impressions (and impressions of some of the MATians who came to visit for NIME). 

The package is very generous (every adapter you could imagine needing). 
The device itself is surprisingly light. It is fairly comfortable (like a gentle version of a snorkel). The cable is perhaps a little short however. 
The head tracking latency is very low. However the current dev kit only tracks orientation, not translation. I understand that translation will be included soon (if it hasn't already). 
The resolution is not high, but actually surprisingly acceptable (maybe because I'm older and remember arcade-level resolutions?). I understand that the commercial version will be higher. 
Looking up and down is pretty cool. There is an instant desire to jump of cliffs and overhangs. Your neck gets tired.
The SDK seems well designed and is updated frequently. OSX is now supported, but I don't know if a laptop would be powerful enough?

The biggest issue is motion sickness. Certain movements (head orientation) corroborate between vestibular sense and visual input. Other movements (translation, mouse/keyboard/joystick navigation) do not. This seems to be physically confusing for some people (others don't seem to mind). 
Projects need to render at extremely high frame-rates and be carefully designed to make sure head-tracking data is as recent as possible (several articles online about how to do this). Delays between vestibular and visual input are instant headache inducers. You need a good GPU and a good programmer.
For me the most disorienting aspect was navigation. Nearly all the demos I tried appeared to be built on the Unity engine, and incorporated mouse/keyboard/joystick navigation. So to look around a little, you can turn your head; but to change direction you need to use a device, which does not match vestibular/proprioceptive senses. I was happily exploring several demo projects for an hour or so, but afterward felt physically sick for several hours. 
Those treadmills make a lot of sense.


On Jun 15, 2013, at 5:41 PM, Tobias Hollerer <holl at cs.ucsb.edu> wrote:

> 
> I've been at a research meeting with VR and AR researchers for this past week, and this is indeed a new trend, after the perceived success of the Oculus Rift.
> A few people discussed a kickstarter project for developing and selling affordable human avatars: 
> 
>> Specifically, we have been talking locally about trying to get funding to build a set of open source avatars that can be used in experiments, games, teaching, etc. I think many of us are beholden to Havok and their RocketBox avatars, but the prices are steep and we can't share our experiments because any users would need to license the avatars themselves.
> 
> In terms of HW technologies, these are truly exciting times for VR/AR researchers. IEEE VR had many more young people this year. And with affordable technologies such as the following, it has never been easier to get started: 
> 
> Oculus Rift
> Leap Motion Sensor
> RAZER Hydra, cheap magnetic motion tracking (http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-controllers/razer-hydra)
> Available as limited devkits only for now:
> New Kinect (http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/new-kinect-can-track-you-so-well-you-may-not-6C10287970)
> M100 Vuzix (Google glass competitor, expected to cost under $500)
> 
> Cheers,
> 
>     Tobias
> 
> 
> On 6/15/2013 6:30 AM, Tim Wood wrote:
>> move awkwardly:
>>   http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1944625487/omni-move-naturally-in-your-favorite-game
>> 
>> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/551975293/meta-the-most-advanced-augmented-reality-interface
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> -- 
> Tobias Hollerer
> Professor, Department of Computer Science
> University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5110
> 
> 
> holl at cs.ucsb.edu, Office: (805)284-9395, Fax: (805)893-8553 
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