What Ever Happened to Virtual Reality?

bergeron76 writes "It seems like it's been ages since I heard of any advances in "Virtual Reality" technology. Was Virtual Reality just hype? Are there any new or existing projects that have made any significant inroads (aside from the first-person shooter games)? Is total virtual immersion a worthless persuit / dead industry? If not, what are the bottlenecks that are delaying it?"

Comments

Not hyped much

[moz25]

With all the advances in 3D (gaming) technology, I suppose that the hype has worn off. It's just not newsworthy anymore to be able to simulate a virtual environment.

One area in which Virtual Reality has been generating very positive effects is, unexpectedly (?), therapy against phobias and traumas. An example is fear of heights where people can confront their fears in a simulated (and thus controlled) environment and gradually let go of them.

So yes, I'd say that Virtual Reality does improve people's lives in at least one way that doesn't involve shooting at things.

Pursuit

[metlin]

It's spelt pursuit, not persuit.

And AR (Augmented Reality) seems to have taken the place of VR lately, lots of progress has been made in that end.

More importantly, VR equipment and tracking is usually prohibitively expensive, which I'd guess is partly responsible for the lack of any apparent progress.

Also, the suspension of disbelief in VR is quite important - not so in AR, since it only attempts at adding more information to the existing reality.

IVY (Immersive Virtual Environment at York)

[rmpotter]

York University in Toronto has an interesting facility:

York's virtual reality room turns perception on its head

Home to Canada's only fully-immersive environment

TORONTO, March 31, 2005 -- Jumping into the virtual world of a
videogame is helping York University researchers understand how humans orient themselves on solid ground and in outer space.

Professor Michael Jenkin and his team at York's Centre for Vision Research have developed a 'virtual reality room' called IVY (Immersive Virtual Environment at York) in order to study our perception of gravity and motion, and how we orient ourselves spatially.

"We're displaying an environment from [the popular videogame] Doom right now, but of course that's just an example of one simulation," Jenkin says.

The room is the only six-sided immersive environment in Canada, and one of a mere handful internationally. Its walls, ceiling and floor are comprised of pixel maps generated by a cluster of computers running Linux. The entire structure is made of the same glass used in the CN Tower's observation deck. The floor alone took two years to complete.

Researchers are able to manipulate the environment within IVY, changing the scenery and its orientation, in order to understand how people become disoriented and how their internal perception of 'up' and 'down' is informed.

"Some people become incredibly confused. I've actually seen people fall over in there," Jenkin says.

The research is being used by the Canadian Space Agency and National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) to find ways to help strengthen astronauts' sense of 'up' and 'down' in zero gravity environments.

Jenkin's team also hopes to find methods of counteracting the gradual loss of spatial orientation that occurs as we age.

One of the most challenging aspects of IVY's design was to create a system that allowed subjects to experience both the look and feel of moving through the virtual space.

A graduate student developed a wireless 'head-tracking' device that follows subjects' movements and alters the displays accordingly. Users wear stereo shutter glasses which give a 3-D effect.

"The computer compensates when you move around so it looks correct. It knows where you've moved, where your eyes are," says Jenkin.

As the country's only truly immersive environment, IVY is also in demand from private industry for a myriad of projects.

"If someone brings us their data set, we can render it and they can walk through and interact with it," says Jenkin.

"We're constantly pushing the boundaries and learning how better to do VR."

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Re:One major bottleneck:

[Short Circuit]

That's not true at all. You're only crosseyed if your eyes are focusing on a close common point. If each eye is looking at a different screen, how close that point is is up to the software.

The whole point of 3D displays is to allow you to forget that your viewing surface is less than three feet away. If each screen held an identical image, and was aligned properly, then that image would appear to the user to be at an infinite distance.

The only part of your eye that's focusing on a near surface is are the muscles controlling the lens. If you want to test for strain there, try taking two identical wallet photos, taping or gluing them to a piece of paper at a center-to-center distance equal to that of your eyes, and put that close to your face. Then try aiming your eyes to converge at infinity.

Your lens is perfectly capable of focusing independently of the aim of your eyes; I do it all the time, and suffer no ill effects.