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VirtuSphere Immersive Virtual Reality
mhzse writes "VirtuSphere provides a mechanical basis for truly immersive virtual reality environments, permitting the user to move about in virtual space by simply walking. The device consists of a large hollow sphere which is mounted on a specially designed platform that allows the sphere to rotate freely as the user walks in any direction. The user wears a head-mounted display, which provides the virtual environment.
think of hamsters?
Currently the only environments that can be reproduced is that of a daredevil cyclist at a circus performance.
Behold the room of circle square,
Wherever it be, no matter where,
For when we enter it hollow space,
The real is gone, without a trace.
Oh, to enter that seductive wheel
Virtual entities are so surreal,
The actual, but, imperfections corrected,
We can blindly forget that they are projected.
And where the triangles are a bit too outright,
We'll turn a blind eye, enjoying the site,
And when the framerate and just doesn't make it,
We'll cry for a bit, but then mitigate it.
The call of the future, the holodeck cometh!
The hail of technology, there's no hiding from it.
As the real is so useless, it reeks with banality,
We don't want it at all, we want virtual reality.
Have you read my journal today?
And I don't suppose that sounds anything like a hamster wheel. Next we can tie chocolate in front of our heads to motivate us to go jogging. Sweet!
hamster ball. can we hook up a generator too, so you have to power your own video game.
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
I want one. How much does it cost?
Bradley Holt
You know, how they could move an unlimited distance in any direction in a room under 10 meters wide. While they don't seem to have explained it in Star Trek, I guess now they've found a solution.
It also provides true object representation of the virtual world, so you can touch what you see. It has the benefits of letting you open doors, or shake someone's hand.
I guess the only downside is the one-sided bloodbath you'd be involved in during a Zelda game if you weren't able to defend yourself properly (watch your back!).
Let me be the first to say.... ...Balls!
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I've tried this setup twice in the past. It always feels like you are walking up an incline. To make it feel flat, the sphere has to be huge. As it is, the weight of the sphere is difficult to start moving and difficult to stop moving. What is required for a real-life VR environment is a flexible sphere that allows a flat surface for the user to walk on and power-assisted rotation to make it start and stop easily.
The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
This makes Nintendo Revolution look like a toy... Oh wait.
Slashdotted Already?
says this will be the controller for the next Nintendo console.
Didn't I see this done in about 1995? There wasn't a market for it then, and there isn't now. People want their MMORPG character to move via a keypress from the comfort of their sofa, in their own home.
J.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
Hasn't similar technology been available for years? Like this:x /products/c/957266.html
http://www.sgi.com/products/appsdirectory.dir/iri
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
First we had the mouse.. Then we had the track ball.. Then we had pressure sensitive balls. Now we get to find out what it's like to be be the mouse. Good thing I like cheese.. *squeek!*
It seems like a hamster sphere.
http://graphics.cs.ucf.edu/MAR-Sumant/index.php
mixed reality is something that allows people to actually interact with an environment in the real and virtual world. they use it for a lot of military simulators as well as a wide variety of other applications. plus it doesnt require the ball from American Gladiators.
Already down--use http://www.technovelgy.com.nyud.net:8090/ct/Scienc e-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=462.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
Looks like they all ready blocked referals from Slashdot. Have to copy and paste that URL.
And speaking of URLS, here is the link to the manufactures website.
This thing reminds me of a human version of a hamster ball.
Yopu for you?
They could simulate walking up and down hills with this thing. Biasing the ball to preferentially rotate in a a particular direction would create a simulated gravity gradient. The user would definitely find it hard to walk "up hill" and easy to walk "down hill". It couldn't do stairs, only slopes, but it could give the user a real work-out.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
My virtual reality would not involve actual walking :)
Everybody thought I was paranoid and trying to keep out the alien mind-rays.
Nope.
I was working on a virtual reality immersion suit.
I wonder how they're getting the video signal to the HMD? Any decent resolution is going to require a fair ammount of bandwidth. It's obviously not going to be a cabled connection (where would the cables go?).
Thus begins the saga of Zero Horse!
In A.D. 1301, the Siege was beginning...
King: What happen?
Lookout: Someone set up us a trebuchet.
Lookout: We get hail.
King: What?
King: Tell me the message.
King: It's Eric von Bunghole!
Eric von Bunghole: How art thee good gentlemen?
Eric von Bunghole: All thy castle art belong to my court.
Eric von Bunghole: Thou art on the way to plunder.
King: What he say?
Eric von Bunghole: Thou hast no chance to survive make thy days.
Eric von Bunghole: Ha ha ha ha!
King: Move Horse!
King: For Great Feudalism!
Funny part is that if you run into a wall, the ball locks up and you go flying.
the original link works fine. shut up with your karma whoring
Hey, I'm as big an FPS junkie as the next person, but I still think it's kind of interesting that in every picture of this thing there's guy with a firearm in his hand. Good fodder for sociologists.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
I think it would be hard to emulate running from a stop since you'd have to get the sphere moving up to speed. Or even the reverse... running fast then coming to a quick stop would be hard since the sphere would be spinning quickly.
Seems like an interesting idea, although not very revolutionary. The technology that they really need to improve on is not the movement of the body (ie, walking in any direction), but the ability for fine motor control inside the virtual reality (ie using arms and hands to hold / move objects).
:P
Once they mastered that, I see virtual reality really taking off. Until then, it just seems like a 'cool toy', but isnt very useful.
Oh, and they're a little vague on the details, but since the ball can move in any direction, I wonder what happens when the user 'walks' to the huge opening in the picture
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
And I quote:
Strange definition of "fine" you have there.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
This means gamers would actually have to exercise...OMG!
Might it be better to walk on top of one of these things than inside? Sort of like walking on the underside of a ball-mouse?
This sounds like it could be fun, depending on how big the special manipulator is.
Abstinence is a government conspiracy. www.SafeSexZone.co
...instead of getting all balled up with this circular way of thinking, I think we need to think outside the box on this one and come up with an idea that truly doesn't revolve around spherical solutions.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
Al never bumped into walls either. But what I really want to know is where I can get a cool handheld like the one he had.
...kinda cool I suppose. Does limit the sorts of thing you can walk on - pretty difficult to simulate stairs, for example.
:)
I always though that some sort of moving tile system with lots of small, tilting variable height tiles would work pretty well for simulating walking on undulating terrain, as well as being able to cover stairs etc.
Maybe a large spherical room with walls covered in shifting variable tiles of this sort, that way you could have overhangs etc as well. Go rock climbing up a virtual Eiger, with only a few feet to fall if you slip
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petrified... grits... portman... AAAAAAAAARGH!
But can I get raped by Demi Moore?
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
...computers were made so we could walk *less*
Get your Unix fortune now!
Put on a Star Trek uniform and walk around the local renaissance festival. When people look at you funny or ask you what the heck you are doing tell them that you are in the holodeck and that none of them are real...
Get your Unix fortune now!
What do I do when my legs get tired?
From the manufacturer's website http://www.virtusphere.net/product.htm The poor bastard in the top picture totally got jipped. Between the two versions, I would have definitely chosen the black metal alloy mesh one... and not the lame clear plastic one. Still, neither one would get you laid
Please retrieve it and place into a more cogent discussion.
Thanks, Bomberman
This is one obvious solution for providing an "infinite environment" in a finite space. Another is active floor tiles.
:-).
There are two problems with them. First, they can't actually give you completely natural motion anyway because, no matter what you do, the accelerations aren't going to work out correctly, and acceleration is what your brain senses.
Second, it's not clear why you need something even this complicated: your brain is adaptive enough that it will perceive even much simpler interfaces as the real thing after a short amount of time (and if it doesn't, a bit of weed may be cheaper and take up less space than this contraption
(Of course, since Star Trek has artificial gravity, this isn't a problem for the Holodeck.)
I find it interesting that a lot of the focus at the end of the article is on creating some sort of Holodeck, ala Star Trek. It's a sad state of affairs when the latest tech "innovation" comes from the previous week's episode of Star Trek.
So, where are these brilliant ideas going to come from now that there *is* no more Trek?
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
They had this at PAX this year.
There are some pictures of it on Flickr - I'm sure there are more.
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Don't walk, fly!
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
So if one is running in said sphere and comes to a sudden stop is the ball responsive enough - or will it continue to rotate and flip the user?? Also why the f*ck is the dude in the ball wearing a ski mask?
how can they handle that? i wish you could make a physically morphable environment and ditch the spacehelmets and eyewear.
An alternative to the sphere idea is the floor movement idea.
Basically the floor senses where you are going and makes sure to put a moving panel under your foot no matter which way you go.
More info: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6299You are in a giant plastic sphere. Obvious exits are: none. >_
abort, retry, fail?
You roll around trying to roll onto these platforms that shoot out blinding steam when you do ... meanwhile these huge American Gladiators get in your way and make your goals impossibly hard.
Klingons are a staple at many Southern Ren Faires, like the Texas Renaissance Festival...
I didn't find them as funny as when I ran into Ash, however, complete with chain-saw hand and "boomstick" strapped to his back...
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
The relationships between the horizontal forces your feet exert when walking on a surface, and the accelerations produced in other parts of your body that are capable of sensing acceleration are going to be very different when walking on a flat surface than when walking within a counterrotating sphere.
Within a few minutes within a Virtusphere, unless you are walking very slowly, won't your brain will become aware of discordant sensations from all the muscles and proprioceptors and semicircular canals and things and experience them as nausea?
Since nausea has been a continuing problem with VR, I have to wonder why the article is silent on this point.
(On the other hand, it doesn't say anything about centrifugal vomit drains in the sphere, so maybe it's all OK).
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Um, how can a comment about the consequences of an imaginary machine be insightful in a thread about a real machine?
I'm not ragging on you for making the comment - the comment is perfectly reasonable. What isn't reasonable is the "+4 insightful" I see on it.
I've been toying with the idea of building a VR-style flight simulator simulator like this, with a "realistic" cockpit, multiple displays, etc. The big difference would be being able to orient the pilot in 3D in-synch with the simulated aircraft's orientation. Sticking the whole thing inside a giant hamster ball like this would be a pretty decent solution (not a big deal to keep it battery-powered with wireless network connectivity).
Any suggestions on constructing a big-ass sphere like the VirtuSphere guys have done? I have no problems with the programming side of things, and enough electronics experience to get the job done, but I'm a bit short in the mechanical engineering department.
The other thought I had was to aim for something a little more conservative/simpler, and just have an enclosed cockpit mounted on some sort of physical actuator. That would restrict me to, say, 45 degrees of inclination, rather than a full 360 degrees of rotation with the sphere approach.
Anyway, if anyone has suggestions or URLs that would help, post 'em. And yes, I've googled a fair bit on this already!
Well, problems with machines is not machines per se (an electron I can't tell you is not guilty of anything), not even about limits, limits in math is just 'give it enough time to get bored and just 'imagine' where is going after no 'measurable' change and the pattern conveyed is discovered' (bablish talking, i like it) The problems are us. What happens if you give something dangerous to a kid? are we, the grown ones, just kids, playing with fire? I'm starting to get worried about who is in charge, and it is you and whoever you open the eyes, since WE ARE THE MASS, who must controll the little ones with responsability. That's why in Spain if the mass says no war, the government falls... I don't know if the average mass is intelligent enough with the media food it likes (think we have the 'heart' press at full level here in Spain), but sure is the only one that can change things so WATCH OUT, NASTY GUYS WE'LL THROW THE DOGS if you missbehave! Time for a revolution? you asked for it!
There's a hole on one side of the sphere. If it rotates, couldn't the person inside step right through the hole?
01/20/09
That it is powered by the generators attached to the sphere. ...
Therefore, the more people you put in there, the more powerful your virtual reality will be
with the big whole in the sphere? Also, what if a person wants to jump foward, or if they fall backwards.
The first thought that came to mind was the Dynosphere.
More monowheels. The patriot monowheel, and the industrial V8 version.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Instead of making the sphere metal mesh, which it seems to be now, you could build the sphere out of a white plastic substance, then put projectors on the outside of the sphere projecting in. This would alleviate the necessity of a VR helmet and make the whole system much more believable.
They've had treadmills that can do the same thing thise does for years. How are they going to simulate walking up stairs? Or for that matter anything that's not a spherical surface. This looks too expensive to have any kind of practical real world use.
1) Create an enclosed dome-shaped LCD with a radius of at least 2 meters and pixels as small as those found on standard desktop displays. Think the top half of a sphere closed with a flat floor. Easier said than done, but stick with it.
2) Make a sphere of flexible, transparent plastic and thread it through a small gap between the walls and floor of the LCD dome. This plastic floor will act as a 360-degree treadmill allowing the dome's occupant to walk in any direction without moving from its centre.
3) Develop sensors (Pressure? Motion?) and software that will notice when the occupant walks and alters the LCD background and transparent treadmill to give the sensation of movement while keeping him stationary.
4) Oh, you'll also need a photo-realistic graphics engine capable of pushing a few billion pixels every frame.
I think everything but 4) is entirely feasible with today's technology. I drew a cross-section to make things clearer: blue is the LCD dome; yellow is the transparent treadmill.
Hmm.. IPOs, buyouts, mergers, and now Virtual Reality. Sounds like the bubble all over again...
http://www.rayn.net . Funny. Stuff.
I'd probably get a bad case of the spins in that thing.
okis, but year 2200 is coming, it won't be for us, it will be for our kids Offtopic: Ok, it sounds fun now I see wonders OffTheRecord: What if? so many question and me can't quit this 'it is really my fault?'
MIRROR
They had one of these at PAX. Plastic sphere, fairly heavy construction, on some wheels and sensors that allow fairly free rotation. You wore a head-mounted display and had a "gun" peripheral that you could point and shoot. Play time was about 5 minutes and lines were about an hour long.
Guess what? It sucked. Everyone who has considered how to make an immersive VR environment has, at one time, considered sticking someone in a sphere so they can walk around like this. Within 5 minutes, they've also come up with a number of problems with this setup: inertia keeps the sphere going, walking isn't really "flat", you can't run cords into it, and it's expensive and bulky.
I stood in line, figuring they'd come up with solutions to some, or most, of these problems, making it actually usable. They didn't. Stopping and turning was terrible, walking normally took serious focus, and and to top it off, the demo game was unplayably bad: PSX graphics at best, the "which direction is up" calibration was constantly off, it didn't track motion very well, and things just seemed to pop up randomly. And the actual view window was really small. "Immersive" my ass.
This technology isn't worth further investigation until they can prove the above problems are fixable.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
confusion WARNING: Newbie touching buttons a diestro y siniestro, juas... sorry....
I've always wondered what it's like to be Nitro from American Gladiators!
Forget shooters, now what I'd really like to play inside this would be a game of Sonic the Hedgehog. :)
Just don't put in obsticles that require you to run and jump over them.
There's no place like ~/
The way I thought this kind of thing should work is, you are on a platform whose surface is like a conveyor belt that can move in 2 dimensions. (I know it sounds impossible, but I'm sure someone like Rubik could invent one.) Then there is a sensor which tracks where you are, and the belt is constantly moved to keep you in the middle of the platform.
Now, the problem with this is, as you start to move you expect your momentum to change in certain ways. You lean forward a little as you start to walk and then lean back as you stop. But if the belt is moving, and given that there will be some time lag, you're going to feel your momentum changes in a different way. When the belt starts moving you'll feel a jerk in that direction. Any motion will feel odd and you might tend to lose your balance.
So nothing along these lines will be perfect. Even in the holodeck this should have been noticeable, unless their "tractor beams" can directly affect your inner ear balance sensors.
Such a scheme isn't really revolutionary to be honest, several people have come up with similar things however it seems there is still a problem of stairs, non-level terrain and the fact that a really big sphere is needed for a flat 'floor'.
:P. This also solves the issue of inclines.
:( the flexible sphere. Any chemical engineers care to comment on materials/construction of the sphere?
Howver if we made the ball flexible enough to sit on a flat platform we have one problem nixed.
The biggest problem is the stairs, we can cover this by making the 'flat' platform consist of multiple elements of variable height. It will feel strange like walking up/down the down/up escalator in your local store
Another issue is that of walls and simulating running into them, forget simulating them, we can place 'brakes' around the sphere. Due to the flexibility of the sphere, the floor will have a slight amount of stretch in it so when the user wants to change direction away from the 'wall' the brakes will let go.
To be honest most of the system is open to homebrew attempts, it is just the major componenet that isn't
Actual porperties of sphere will determine how to construct the hole to enter/leave the sphere.
An optical mouse can be easily cannibalised for an adequate sensor to determine movement.
Brakes are easy, solenoids or hydraulic.
The floor elements will be the costly part, a simple tilting floor can be used to simulate inclines, but individual elements are wanted for stairs. Solenoids could be used, variable height done by using a variable current rather than just on/off.
Hrm, I spend way too much time brainstorming useless stuff I will prolly never build.
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funny how that happens
See SPIN for an older project in this vein.
would be if they had a video showing the virtusphere in action and what the user was seeing simultaneously side by side.
HD Trailers
1) Jumping into water
2) Swimming
3) Weightlessness.
It may be fully emmersive, but it's not perfect.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
Can it fill up with water to simulate water in the environment?
The user is tracked in most CAVE systems via a magnetic tracker (usually something like an Ascension Flock of Birds). Most user-interface items such as pointers and/or steering wands are tracked in the same way. The main user can walk around the CAVE environment and the tracking program will take their position into account during rendering. Other users in the system must stay close to the main user if they want to have an immersive experience. Otherwise, their view will be skewed.
They had one of these set up at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) I watched a girl stumble awkwardly for a while with her arms out on what was supposed to be (I think) a virtual tour of a few government buildings in Russia. I suppose once you get used to it, it's probably less awkward.
The screen us outsiders could see didn't look particularly responsive, but it also didn't look like any engine I've ever seen, so maybe they're just bad at making virtual tours of Russia.
I would have tried it if there had been several hundred fewer people in the room.
It looked like she still had to use a handheld pointer to change camera direction, too, which seems like it would make things a lot more difficult.
I bet it sucks when you step in the hole.
Damn, I was thinking about doing this 10 years ago. The difference is that mine was inverted (the sphere would be built into the floor, the top protruding just a little, and you'd stand on top). I knew it was not very practicle, but it never occured to me to build it above ground and stand inside :-)
I was also thinking of having robotic arms that could come into range of the person to act as objects that could be felt. ie. if the person walked up to a wall in the virtual world a piece of panel could meet with their hand if they reached out to touch it. There would obviously be some safety limits required. This additional feature would be easy to implement in my under-the-floor version but quite difficult in the stand-inside-the-sphere version.
Projection would suit this much more than an LCD. Mount the projectors outside of the sphere. Hell, you could even build the treadmill and projector screen in one layer. Of course you'd need to keep it clean, but the same goes for a clear plastic treadmill anyway. Also it would need to give a bit of grip, and display a good image. Anyone with a projector screen wanna try running on it and tell me what it feels like?
Yet another blogger begging for an audience.
What we need to do is find a way to stop our brain from sending motor signals to our body (like when we sleep) but grab those signals and interpret them.
That is what the warehouse part is for. See you set the level - go through it, everyone goes to a staging level at the "end" the warehouse floor and ceiling move to make the next level, and then you start again... think Diablo, never the same level twice ... kinda neat really ... infinite dungeons for the taking....hmmm
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
CirculaFloor is a group of independent tiles that move in under the person so that they can walk without moving forward. It is actually increadible annoying to use because you can loose your balance easily in the VR environment as everything but your ears think you are moving forward when you are staying still. It also isn't fast enough yet to handle rapid changes in direction. However, I think it is a much better plan than a giant ball.
Untill we can tap directly into the brain and emulate movement while paralized (even though it would feel like you were truly moving) it seems like the best way would be to suspend someone in a full suit. Hard to explain what I'm saying but if you could freely move your legs (for the most part that is) in harnesses that could give you the sensation of having whatever terrain under you. Well I think you get the idea. Unfortunately I'm still talking about millions of dollars worth of gear to play a game. Seems a little extreme if you ask me, but then again I really like my games ;)
Jay Dale "If you're not living on the edge then you're taking up too much space!"
combine that with this!!!