Augmented Reality Quake

DrGonzo writes "Take a tour of campus an shoot some monsters. The Wearable Computer Lab at the University of South Australia has developed a prototype wearable Quake suit. " I'm a little skeptical of this, but it sure would make the frisbee golfers on campus look like the normal ones.

Comments

My two cents...

[cr0sh]

Right now, the main research is focused on AR - augmented reality, of which the "research" mentioned in this /. article is part of.

As far as "virtual reality" is concerned, number one, it isn't called VR anymore - it is called "virtual environments" (and I even think use of that term is being "discouraged"), or "VE".

Basically, most researchers are having a hard time getting funding for anything with the word "virtual" in it, as it is seen (by potential investors) as a money hole.

It doesn't look like there are going to be any "breakthroughs" soon - you probably aren't going to go out and buy an HMD at Fry's within the next 5 years. It is strange, but it is mainly because of "no market". What is strange is that there is a HUGE market - FPS players. However, FPS players won't be satisfied with just an HMD, they will want at minimum full tracking of head and "gun" position. I think if a home version of Q3A coupled with the HMD, "wand", and tracking system of a Virtuality 2000 came on the market cheap enough, people would flock in droves to it, but it won't happen, because the HMD and tracking isn't cheap.

It is crazy, because the tracking should be cheap - there have been (and still are) a few projects on the net to homebrew magnetic trackers, many with enough details to replicate them yourself. Sourceless head trackers are also fairly cheap (though you can't use them with a mag tracker). HMD's are hard to homebrew, but it has been done. Parts are cheap enough, though plans are scarce. I have a ton of the plans from the early 90's, but no rights to reproduce them. Some are available online, though.

If you are real lucky, you might manage to scrounge a "pro-level" HMD off of ebay (there is pro level VR gear on ebay - stuff that used to go for thousands, now goes cheap - I have seen polhemus mag trackers on ebay, and last year I managed to "snag" a General Realities CyberEye CE-200M HMD with head tracker CHEAP).

Most of what is on Ebay is the old stuff, but it can be had fairly cheap, too - old Victormaxx HMDs and Forte VFX-1s go fairly cheap. Powergloves can be found as well, though they are starting to get real scarce.

Your best bet, if you really want to see this personally, is to build it - that is really the only way you or I will get to use this kind of stuff, and it is likely that the homebrew people will be the ones to really create the apps...