3D Virtualization Edges Toward the Mainstream

Roland Piquepaille writes "With recent improvements in graphic cards and in powerful Linux-based PC clusters, virtual 3D prototypes are rapidly replacing actual physical prototypes in a wide range of industries, including early adopters such as aerospace or car companies. But now, software designers are also incorporating sound and tactile feedbacks to their Virtual Reality (VR) systems for real product development. In this long article, Desktop Engineering gives several examples of these new VR developments. But even if PC clusters and off-the-shelf graphic cards are cheap, a state-of-the-art VR facility such as an immersive CAVE can still cost more than one million dollars, because you need to build the viewing facility and buy expensive projection systems. However, costs are still decreasing and virtual prototyping is reaching the mainstream stage. This overview contains selected excepts and comments."

Comments

3D printers

[wormbin]

VR is cool but don't forget that you can get a similar rapid prototype benefit from 3D printers.

The one thing I remember from graphics class

[antifoidulus]

Just make sure your VR has a low latency. If people in a VR world turn but the world does not turn fast enough, a lot of them will vomit.

Re:toys for the boys?

[Fjornir]

Best bang-for-buck I've seen for home VR is a pair of shutter glasses. Basically the way it works if you have an LCD in front of each eye -- and in software the system renders a left eye image, and the glasses blank out your right eye -- then vice versa (syncing is handled by hooking the glasses inline between your monitor and your video card). I have the VR Visualizers from http://www.vrex.com/ ) and they're pretty cool.

However: the DepthCharge plugin they have for viewing 3D content in a webpage Just Plain Sucks -- it doesn't keep state and remember what kind of glasses you have so you need to pick it again and again and again.

The best-viewing mode with these glasses is interlaced (in addition to left/right image pairs, the dongle will blank our alternate scan lines on your monitor improving the effect a lot). Unfortunately on my glasses this mode requires you to hold-down a button on the glasses-controller, so it sucks for gaming without duct tape.

Video cards and drivers that will put out stereo image-pairs are few and far between. Make sure your card will, or buy a card that will if you want to do any gaming. Game compatability is also an issue. Google will help here.

Eyestrain. 'nuff said.

It needs to be done in a completely dark room -- any light reflecting off of your monitor will tend to ruin the illusion of 3d.

Your screen needs to be resonably flat -- curved monitors distort the 3d image ruining the illusion.

Article - Roland Piquepaille

[Zakabog]

Here's a link to the article without supporting the whore, errr Roland Piquepaille

"In this long article"

[tod_miller]

1383 words, by a freelance writer. Support her by reading her own work, not some abridged version. (don't click second link, it is just a traffic drive - if he wants to tell us what he thinks he can post a /. reply and click some /. ads)

Read article un-abridged (it is getting better, the real link was first in the story)

Guidelines for moderating sigs: If it is a sig that contains non-abusive content, ignore it. If the sig ISN'T actually a sig (cannot be turned off) then give it a -1 offtopic/over-rated/troll as applicable.

Re:ROLAND PIQUEPAILLE

[Tim C]

Initially at least, every single story he submitted consisted of a brief overview of the actual story, and a link to his blog. His blog contained a brief overview of the story, and a link to the actual story. Now, after months of complaints, he includes a link to the story in the slashdot summary too. If you google on his name, you'll find that he's made a career out of this; he consults on driving traffic to websites and blogs.

He is whoring for traffic for his blog, plain and simple. That would be fine, but his stories turn up here with such regularity that you could be forgiven for thinking that he works for slashdot. That would *also* be fine, but if it's the case, it really ought to be disclosed.

A lot of people consider his stories (especially in the past, before he linked to the real story instead of just his blog) to be glorified adverts. Understandably, the people who subscribe so they don't have to see ads are a little upset at that.

Finally, attached to every single story of his are a lot of posts complaining about him for the reasons above (amongst others), and yet the slashdot editors remain utterly silent on the matter. Sure, it's their site and we don't have to read it, but it would be nice to at least be acknowleged. No-one likes to feel ignored, especially paying subscribers (not that I am one, of course).

VR good for games, bad for business....

[MosesJones]

I worked in an industry that used VR, you can probably guess which one if I say its not for entertainment. What we found was that for simulation elements and "gaming" it worked well, but for command and control type functions it was too much information to process and a flat 2D model worked better, the 3D model lead to things being missed as they were out of scope and also on periferal vision elements being given too much weight over the central image (the human eye reacts better to movement at the edges, its where the tigers are coming from).

So great that its getting cheaper, but please god can all those "cool a VR desktop" people just have a think for a second. Maybe zoom out (ala the Mac and Looking Glass) to get your windows, or rotate (looking glass) but a full VR would be dreadful, we found users getting lost and disoriented as they tried to navigate unstructured information (and most people's directory structures are very unstructured).

Early Adopter Outlook

[Chitlenz]

As the lead developer on a PACS system (this involves capture images for radiological diagnostics) we have been working to evolve a lot of these technologies and adapt them more towards desktop use. MRI in particular captures image data with volumetric depth and allows for relatively easy conversion to 3d volumetric models. Add some basic surface analysis and you get texture modelling of 3d surfaces in realtime, for instance Terarecon's Aquarius stations (http://www.terarecon.com) have the capability to use live data captured from a patient still in an MRI bore to allow the extraction of live models (as in watch your heart beat), and future versions will be able to 'live-simulate' heart attacks, etc. Terarecon is a competitor of ours, but their site has some cool examples =)

For us, VR is an inevitablity, but CAVE environments are impractical. Today, we use high end (5MP) flat panels to lay out diagnostic workstations in something similar to the 'Minority Report' layout, minus the panel transparency. This guy (article author) is looking at VR applications essentially in researched industrial design, which is cool and all, but what's important to note is that in order for someone other than a labrat to be comfortable with the environment it has to become a lot more comfortable to the average guy. That is, VR needs to emulate life a lot better than it does today in its interfaces. Convincing a non-techie to put on ANYTHING (glove, helmet,etc.) ain't gonna happen for a workspace that will be used 12 hours a day by one person. The important thing missing still is ergonomics and practicality.

The cool thing though, is that TRUE VR is very close to reality today, that is to say that we can very accurately (to the mm, soon to be to the micron) recreate a simulated space within you today, and use that data to effectively represent you on a computer. Its actually kinda creepy since when you texture a skull study it really looks like the person you scanned heh. I keep meaning to scan me and turn me into a Doom3 model (muahahaha).

Anyway, good article, but not so relevant to the real world just yet IMHO. The best hope for entertainment VR is indeed still the CAVE systems. I dunno where they got 400k from, I can build a cave for around 20k, including everything. Maybe they included the cost of the building too or something.

Just my 2cents -- chitlenz

Re:ROLAND PIQUEPAILLE

[demachina]

Here is a pretty good write up about why everyone hates Roland. He is basicly making a living by finding someone elses interesting article, submitting it to Slashdot and using it to generate ad revenue on his web site. He has improved lately since he actually links to the original article first and to his web site second. Used to be you were steered to his web site first I gather.

Haven't checked myself but the writeup indicates that EVERY article he was submitting to Slashdot was being accepted which is a near impossibility unless he is recieving somekind of preferential treatement from Slashdot or its parent company.

The worst case conspiracy theory is he is partnered with Slashdot, or its parent company, or he is sending a kickback from his ad revenues to Slashdot and they are in turn insuring every one of his submissions makes the front page.