I made sounds for a game I created several years back - it just isn't that hard. Most of the sounds I created with my mouth alone. Some sounds were mixed, reversed, sped up or slowed down - sometimes all forms were used.
When I am out and about, I try to listen for cool sounds, or sound locations - where I might be able to get a sound I couldn't get otherwise (one of the labs at MetroTech here in Phoenix has an air conditioner that rumbles like you wouldn't believe - the sound would be perfect for a background ambient loop for corridors in, say, a starship).
The majority of sounds can be had for free - just go and get a good cassette deck, and a good microphone, and have some fun (BTW - try using other things instead of a microphone, like wiring a speaker in reverse - also, remember to use 60Hz hum to your advantage - near a motor, things can get wacky - like a fan).
Getting sounds is the easy part - it's knowing when and where to integrate them into the game that is tough...
OK - I will try those, and do a little more research on my own for OLEDs...
I don't think that pattern recognition would be needed for more than gesture recognition - the main thing would be using two cameras to track a point in 3D, and working out the X/Y/Z and yaw/pitch/roll of the "part" being tracked. A body suit to track using, say potentiometers or strain gauges would have to be pretty well fitting - but still, you face error issues, because of the way skin (and the suit) would stretch and move about the joints and such (now, maybe if you could mount it to the bones - ouch!). But, it could be cheaper. I figure that if you can already track a single point with cameras, you can track a whole bunch - so just glue those points onto the body. Use 3M reflective tape, and "light" the user up with IR (or near IR) light - and remove any IR filters from the cameras. The points should stand out well.
Thanks for the link and info about JG - I hadn't tried that one. I sent an email to Raytheon asking for information - if he still worked there. If I don't get a response, I will try the school as well.
My hope is to get a CD-ROM or such with all the articles on it, in some document format, that I could turn into PDFs or HTML, and put up on my site for others to use. At minimum, I would like to put up selected articles. But, I have to get permission before I can legally do this (one thing I wonder - if I can never contact him, can I legally re-publish, as long as I can prove that I tried everything I could to contact him? - Ahh, an issue for a lawyer, no doubt)...
What places sell these (OLEDs)? - I wouldn't mind knowing myself...
I think for the full body thing you could get by with a better QuickCam type device doing 640x480 - maybe use multiple ones on USB and custom software. Or, have a video capture card (like a WinTV or similar), and some kind of video switcher to swap between cameras. Your biggest issue is once again, the software needed to make it work (two cameras could track a point in 3D space, though - in theory).
The link you gave to the Images Company seems neat - I will have to go over that site with a fine-toothed comb, later...
My HMD is a cheapo Stuntmaster - my original one cost me $250.00, open-box item at Best Buy - I bought it in late 1993, when it first came out. You can now sometimes get them on Ebay and other places for less than $50.00 (my other two cost me less than $50.00 for both). It isn't great, but boy is it cheap! The optics and LCDs from the other system I got from Halted a couple of years back (www.halted.com). When Victormaxx went out of business, Halted bought a bunch of the parts, which were quickly snatched up. I managed to get some, enough to build a single HMD. It is also possible to build a fairly good quality HMD using hand-held TVs and such. Takes a lot of work, but is supposedly worth it in the end (PCVR ran quite a few articles on doing this).
I didn't get the email you sent me: Did you send it to the right address? Remember to take out the NOSPAM (some people forget)...
It actually is an advancement over the tech used in the Matrix. It is pretty cool, too - too bad I am not a huge football fan by any means.
Essentially, in the Matrix still cameras were used, all fired in sequence, aranged "around" the point of action. This "in action" panning strip was then enhanced/scrubbed with a computer to make it cleaner, and more presentable.
What is being done in the Superbowl is similar - but replace each still camera with a video camera, and feed the frames in a computer. Now, as the action is going on at the "action point", you have 33 streams, all from different angles, running and capturing frames. Now, think of these strips of frames - if you played all 33 in sync (so that frame 1 of strip A is played at the same time as frame 1 of strip B), and switched "along" the sequence of the 33 cameras, you could get full video along those points, at any angle. Or, you could show various angles (as seen from camera 27). Pan from 1 to 33, while moving the video forward, or reverse, and you have full motion panning, through time, along an arc.
Then, the CBS engineers go one step further - they have mounted all of these video cameras on robotic pan/tilt/zoom platforms - very precise platforms - all working in concert to all point at the same 3D coordinate in the stadium. I would imagine the software to be quite complex to manage all of that, to manage the calculations, the control, the capture, playback, review, etc. The system to store the video frame streams would have to be pretty huge as well, to do it all in real time, at TV quality, for over 30 streams. I mean, for one stream at 16 bit quality - 30 fps - say 640x480 video - for one second of video that would be 17 MB! Over 30 streams would be half a gig - every second! I would imagine a parallel video RAID-like system for this, to get a few seconds of video. Entirely doable, very custom, I would imagine.
I am sure these cameras can also be used in "teams" as well, or individually. I think (I could be wrong here) that the motion of the streams would cancel out the need to do real-time interpolation of the images as was done for the Matrix (which was done because the raw strip of images was very jumpy). I might be wrong about that, though (depending on how far apart the cameras are spaced would determine the jumpiness as well)...
All I can say, if what I am thinking is correct - is wow!
http://www.the-labs.com/Video/ http://rnvs.inform atik.tu-chemnitz.de/~jan/MPEG/MP EG_Play.html http://www.dcc.uchile.cl/~chasan/ (this guy supposedly had a Java player, but it isn't there anymore)
While I doubt it is free, you might look at ClipStream, which is a Java based streaming system (so it can be done - now, is there an open source solution, and better yet, GPL'd?)...
Couldn't some form of an applet on the client side handle this? Sure, it couldn't be very big images, but I would think it would be possible. You might have to come up with some custom streaming format, or use one currently available. I would imagine it depends on what you are trying to stream (a talking head, or an advertisement, or something else), to determine what kind of quality you want in the end. I think it would be possible though to write some server code and a java applet that could handle it all (though only at a low to medium quality).
I thought I remember seeing this done a long while back, when applets were everywhere, Real was just starting out, and streaming video was still an "idea" for later...
Very interesting column - I think that is the first I have heard about using UV to ionize the air - can this info on Tesla using it with klieg lights be verified in any way (I have the major Tesla books, so if somebody can give me a reference)...
I have heard about building a funky "smoke-ring" gun, that shoots ammonia gas rings, thereby setting up a path to "shoot" a branch of lightning down with a Tesla coil.
As far as the voice-to-skull (VTS) tech is concerned - I ran across this, and started investigating what I could dig up on the net - NASA has done research on it, and I read about the modulated microwave experiments, and there are patents out for ultrasonic versions (in which ultrasound acts as the carrier wave, and the ultrasounds is attenuated and stripped from the sound source via the skull).
Some strange stuff out there they don't want you to know about!
PCVR was a very small magazine - though they did start to get "slick" towards the end (even had a full color front and back!). Like I said, good luck in finding it. I will look at the address you sent, but I have probably already tried to contact it. I did a very deep search...
Yeah, I started looking into Waldern/Virtuality connection - they are still in business - as CyberMind (http://www.cybermind.co.uk/).
From what I understand, there are transmitting "antennas" (basically each is a loop antenna, probably several turns) in the base of the unit, and each sensor has three orthogonally aligned coils in it (very small, many hundred turn coils). Each antenna is "pulsed", and each coil in the sensor is read to get a reading. The phase angle of the pulse in each coil indicates the orientation of the sensor, while the strength (amplitude) of the pulse indicates distance from that particular coil. At minimum, three pulses are required for a full reading (where all three of the orthogonal coils are read at one time), or maximum, nine pulses are required (three from each base coil to each coil in the sensor). Then a ton of math is performed to determine the distance from the base coil to the sensor, and orientation. Someone once sent me some math for my "idea" at implementing this - I may have it up on my site (maybe)...
If you are going to work with a manufacturer to build these things (the OLED displays), are you thinking of building a whole "ton" of them - in order to get the cost down (ie, this is not homebrew VR at this point, it is commercial R&D in VR)?
The camera/digitizing system could be used for full body VR interaction, and has seen a little bit of homebrew use (look into the Mandela system - IIRC - and there was also a game controlled by movements seen by a Quickcam). Most of the expense would be in writing the software to interpret the motions, but it can be done with reasonably powerful hardware.
Force feedback at the hand level is complicated, simply because of the bulk. I am sure, homebrew wise, it would be cheap enough to try a piezo/muscle wire combo to product feedback.
Regarding needing the hardware before the software - that was my dillema - I had the hardware, but no way to get the VGA signal to the HMD (I going old-skool route here). I finally picked up an Averkey iMicro, and it works great with my HMD (currently a hacked Stuntmaster, but later will be trying the Halted specialty - ie, Cybermaxx optics and displays, all canned in a custom HMD - I am also toying with the idea of taking two Stuntmaster displays, and building one HMD). Now that I have a display, I want to put together the rest of the hardware (including an interesting sourceless head tracking device that I have planned), so I can do the coding for...
And would be praised by amateur astronomers (and probably a few professionals as well):
Turn off a few (actually, many) of those damn lights in cities and towns!
I live on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona, and the glow from the light in the city is INSANE. All night long, lights are on. Most of these are unneeded - security lights that don't really provide security, merely the illusion of it. Lights that point up onto billboards, instead of down from above. If these lights were installed and designed in a proper manner, fewer could be used to achieve the same desired result, at a savings of energy at night.
How about using LED lights for stop lights? How about designing homes for the environment (ie, small windows on the south/east/west sides - solar cooling, etc)? How about using more fluorescent lights and other energy efficient lights?
Really, the thing is to use less light, not more - we get all kinds of free light most days in most areas, yet we still light up the insides of offices with electricity! Does anyone remember the fiber optic light pipes used in Japan? From sun tracking collectors on the roof, sunlight could be piped into rooms via fiber. Solatubes work in a cruder, though less expensive, fashion.
I know this isn't the complete answer, and I don't want to do away with electric light. I am sure there are a bunch of other things that could be done, but using less electric lights would go a long way...
Good luck in find PCVR - if you are ever able to track down the publisher (Joseph Gradecki), let him know about me, and that I am interested in talking with him about republishing PCVR. Like I said, I have all the copies, but no legal ground to stand on trying to republish. I sent a letter to his last known address (I got it from his publisher of a recent book on network gaming he did), and received it back "return to sender".
I am not sure if you can distribute the database this way or not (via an RMI model). Sure sounds like it would be worth pursuing. Really what you are talking about is building a distributed database model, and miniturising the interface hardware (by this I mean the hardware and software that works on the world model).
The pods you speak of (Waldern-style? Never heard of it, but sounds suspiciously like W Industries former design - is that where the W comes from?) are not designed that way so much for tracking, but for keeping the participants from hurting themselves. It is actually a nice design. But the tracking doesn't rely on the pods. You see, there are sensors placed on the HMD, the glove/handheld wand/joystick, and perhaps even the fanny pack (though this is unlikely, as the player doesn't really need to know which way their body is oriented, only the head and hand(s)). These sensors contain coils that sense electromagnetic pulses, and based on the orientation and distance of the sensor, and some complex math, determine the yaw/pitch/roll and x/y/z of the sensor. It doesn't matter if you do the calculation on the body or off the body, though if you could put everything on the body (like an ultimate wearable), then you would only need one link to the outside - wired or wireless.
I don't think you will be able to build what you are asking for what you are asking. A lot of the professional HMDs use an optical system known as LEEP - which, from what I understand, manages to give a bright and wide FOV, with low distortion. It is a very high-tech set of optics, and they don't come cheap. Those that don't use this system, still use fairly expensive optics. If you want to know what professional optics cost, take a look sometime in an Edmond Scientific Optics catalog, and be amazed. A high quality prism can set you back $20-50 dollars easily!
BTW - how were you going to use OLEDs? Do they make these in panels? Or only single "lights"? If it is the latter, then you will be facing the challenge of either building your own panel (good luck), or making a scanning system. Either way will be too expensive.
Powergloves are hard to come by - I actually think the glove paradigm is only good for a few special cases (mainly where you need to manipulate things), though such devices hold promise of acting as a good interface (ie, hand/finger signals). You could build your own glove, and even build your own sensing system - perhaps using IR sensors, or using a camera and digitising software, or other means. The camera system would be good from the standpoint that it is the most lightweight - you would probably not have to wear anything to use it - or at worst, a colored lycra glove.
I really don't think the main costs are in the designing of the hardware for homebrew VR. While the upfront costs of these components can be expensive, what really will cost is the software. VR is very much a multi-displined art right now - to participate, one must, almost without exception, be a deft with a soldering iron as one is with code. This is only because there is so little off-the-shelf hardware and parts to incorporate easily in the design, and what little there is, may not work with your platform of software (ie, the Powerglove is meant for the Nintendo - but it has to be hacked for the PC, and only there will it work up to a 486 - because the drivers have hard-coded timing loops, due to the bit-banger interface - one would have to recode for this, or build a hardware interface, like the Menelli box).
Yeah - I heard about this a while back, and my GF's friend's daughter ('s barber's cousin's brother...) has it. That is the only install of it I have seen in the entire valley. The picture is good (same as COX Digital), but the menuing options and other things aren't as refined.
There is no advertisement that I have found anywhere in the valley for this service. I am not even sure why they offer it...
I would have to say, during my high school years, was a man by the name of Peter Schwartz (I think that is the spelling). He was my high school physics teacher, during my senior year (at Bakersfield High School, in 1990-91). I don't say he was my best teacher because he helped me in any particular way (not that he helped me to learn difficult physics concepts - he did), but how I saw him act as a teacher.
He was a "strange" individual - and he truely was an individual, going against the grain in every respect. He tended to wear strange clothing (one day he came in with two different color socks - both were a hideous orange and green plaid, but a different pattern on each). He was a vegetarian (he once had for lunch a brocoli and garlic yogurt - one guy in our class said he tried it, and it wasn't bad - but it didn't sound good). He rode his bike to school - every day - no matter how cold, rainy or foggy it was. He would help students any time of the day, and stay as long as was necessary to help a student (even to 9 or 10pm!), then he would ride his bike back home. He was a dedicated teacher. He always made experiments in physics interesting - it was always hands on (one experiment he helped us to do, at the end of finals - was quantitatively figuring out the mass of an electron - using an old ocilloscope and some other equipment and algorithms. I remember that the mass that was found was only off by a couple of magnitudes - which is not that big of a deal, given the equipment we had to work with). He was a very dedicated teacher.
I don't think one student left that class without learning something - from the smartest individual, to the dumbest (or least interested).
He only taught there for that one year, as a break away from his work on his doctorate (I believe) thesis involving plasma physics (using a Tokamak at PPL) - from what he told us, he couldn't complete his work because someone fried the startup capacitor bank. He had the incomplete thesis in class - huge thing. From what I understand, he had degrees from both MIT and Princeton, had done the Peace Corp thing - and was teaching us. His age: 25.
Our school lost a great individual when he left after that year. It was truely a loss. I caught up with him later via email at the PPL - he told me he was doing reseach in Materials Science. Don't know what he is doing now.
If you read this Mr. Schwartz - I thank you for the impact you had on all of us. Good luck in your future life...
It has absolutely nothing to do with copying - it's whole reason for existance is for content control. The only part they never mention is that it wouldn't have teeth if not for the DMCA and in the future, if more states pas it, the UCITA...
The Robin Hollands book is actually one of the better ones out there. It is really too bad that you can't get back issues of PCVR anymore. I have all of them, and the info available in them is nothing short of amazing.
Even with those specs, the PSC1000 is still just a small CPU - it sounds like it would make a great system for robotics, though. I imagine you could build a dedicated VR system, but it will be a TON of development work. You state it would be tailored to the task, but in the end, it is a VR system running on the CPU. You say it would be better than VR->Windows->DOS->i386, but the fat of the matter is I wouldn't build a VR system that way anyhow. An ideal VR system will have multiple boxes: One handling input, one handling video, one handling audio, a controller box, and a backend DB server. Emphasis would be placed on the graphics, controller, and DB server. I would put an RTOS on the graphics, audio, and input servers, the rest could be normal OS machines. Have them all communicate via 100BaseT ethernet over a switch. Essentially a distributed processing system.
High-end HMDs are expensive mainly due to the resolution and optics used - were talking quality stuff here. I consider an HMD high-end when it starts to cost over $1000.00 - maybe a bit higher (some of the mid-range HMDs have come down in price). Consumer HMDs can't compare.
LCDs aren't outdated for homebrew HMDs. A couple of nice TFT LCDs from a couple of hand-held TV's can actually give great results, much better than what was affordable in 1991. It is also possible to get small full color CRT displays for a resonable price. Even shutter glasses can be good, once you start homebrewing your own CAVE system (not that I have ever done such, but it is possible).
I can see using the device as part of a system - maybe as one of those "boxes" I mentioned, since you could actually make it real-time or near real-time with custom coding. With enough of them, your final box might very well be the backend DB server, and the graphics display box (I am thinking something like a 1 GHz machine with a very nice 3D accelerator on it). Doing calcs for some of the hard stuff would be nice too, to get the data as a serial stream in regular ASCII format. But for triangulation, you obviously don't need to use something like this - the Powerglove gave the information in units properly, and it didn't need such a processor. I would say a PIC would suffice for that stuff.
If you manage to create anything interesting, let me know - I would love to learn more about it...
I hate spam (gee, can you tell?) - but so far we have to live with it. The only spam I allow to go through is that in which the TO: contains my real email address. And half the time, that gets deleted as well.
Send only text messages - I hate adverts that have to spend time download crap from another site.
Put [adv] in the subject line, so that those who want to filter for advertisements can.
Put a real return address on it, and honor the requests from people who ask to be removed from the list - and actually remove them - don't just set a flag saying they were removed. Don't build up a second list, either.
Provide real contact info on the email - Name of company, address, phone numbers - in short, make it look like a professional piece of correspondance. Anything less is just crap.
Now, if you did this, and sent the email to me - would I like it, as it is obviously SPAM? Probably not, unless you were really selling something I wanted. But I would be more respectful toward the way you handled it than if you didn't...
I can't remember the title, but it was for the Atari 2600 - I played it as a kid on my uncle's system.
I remember that you were a dot or something, and you went around these "rooms" collecting treasures and avoiding traps. There were so many treasure, like a diamond, and things - and each room was like a maze, or a trap - with walls, etc. I remember one room had these walls that if you didn't time it right, would crush you between them.
It was called "Treasure of the ???" or something similar (maybe it was a single word?).
I know this is very vague and all, but if someone could tell me, or give me a "possibles" list (or links to screenshots, maybe) - that would be real helpful. I have been searching for this game for a loooong time, and maybe this guy has it?
The article noted that the idea of creating a spherical motor has been around for a while, but that the placement of the magnets was what was holding it back. They go on to say that the key was equidistant placement of the magnets...
This sounds wrong to me - they have great minds working on this, but no one in a long time thinks about placing the magnets equally distant from each other (sorta like, uh, I don't know - like a NORMAL AXIAL MOTOR?)...
They also go on to say that the math to equidistantly place the magnets was difficult, but did anyone see that the pattern looked similar to that of the vertices of a geodesic sphere? The math for creating geodesic spheres has been around for quite a while...
I am not saying this couldn't be a useful invention - but something just seems odd that it took so long to create (looking at it, I bet you could build one yourself using parts from a hardware store, All Electronics, and the pet store - for hamster play balls)...
Basically, this chip is a 32 bit CPU - so you are asking how you build VR hardware out of a CPU? Short answer is, you don't - you need a whole lot more than just a CPU (though it might make for an interesting starting point).
Cheap VR hardware isn't built from the ground up in this fashion. While it is feasible to build cheaper HMDs in this manner, you would still be using mostly OTS (off the shelf) hardware for the display electronics. Building your own display (I am not talking the optics, etc - just the display) is a possibility, but you will spend a bit of money and time doing it (it is simply the scale of manufacturing - it is always more expensive to build just one, than it is to build a whole mess, and this savings really is passed on to the customer, in an OTS item - like an LCD TV - that you would use in a VR system).
I am not trying to discourage you - if you have the money and the time, by all means go for it. But what you are asking would be akin to asking "Hey guys, I have this bolt here - how do I go about building a car with it?".
In closing, I would like to add that if you are really interested in cheap, homebrew VR techniques, check out my site. I have a ton of collected information there, that you would probably find very useful in pursuit of low-cost VR.
While production costs between hardbacks and softbacks aren't much different, you do get more value with a hardback. Typically, hardbacks use a better paper, and of course the binding is better, plus the hardbacking protects the book more.
If it is a book you are likely to keep a long time (more than 5 years), get it in hardback. While paperbacks last that long and longer, I have seen some go yellow inside that time (though I do have paperbacks from the 50's that look just fine, go figure). Typically, a hardback book will litterally last a lifetime (and longer).
Actually, if I had my choice, some of the books I have would be on vellum with hard leather or wooden covers (such as my hardback copies of Tolkien). However, since I am not rich and can't get the custom printing and binding done, this will probably be forever a dream...
Ah, so that's what happened. I just say this because one of my former employers used to have a Prime mini-computer cabinet - big thing - they used it mainly as a rack mount cabinet. Was beige, with a red strip across the top in front, with white lettering reading "Big Red" - I still don't know what that means...
You got modded up as "Insightful" - can you explain you comment? Exactly how does it bypass the "need"? Are you saying this because you can hook it up to a monitor (potentially higher res)? Or for some other reason?
I am interested in hearing your thoughts on this...
Slashdot Mirror
I made sounds for a game I created several years back - it just isn't that hard. Most of the sounds I created with my mouth alone. Some sounds were mixed, reversed, sped up or slowed down - sometimes all forms were used.
When I am out and about, I try to listen for cool sounds, or sound locations - where I might be able to get a sound I couldn't get otherwise (one of the labs at MetroTech here in Phoenix has an air conditioner that rumbles like you wouldn't believe - the sound would be perfect for a background ambient loop for corridors in, say, a starship).
The majority of sounds can be had for free - just go and get a good cassette deck, and a good microphone, and have some fun (BTW - try using other things instead of a microphone, like wiring a speaker in reverse - also, remember to use 60Hz hum to your advantage - near a motor, things can get wacky - like a fan).
Getting sounds is the easy part - it's knowing when and where to integrate them into the game that is tough...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
OK - I will try those, and do a little more research on my own for OLEDs...
I don't think that pattern recognition would be needed for more than gesture recognition - the main thing would be using two cameras to track a point in 3D, and working out the X/Y/Z and yaw/pitch/roll of the "part" being tracked. A body suit to track using, say potentiometers or strain gauges would have to be pretty well fitting - but still, you face error issues, because of the way skin (and the suit) would stretch and move about the joints and such (now, maybe if you could mount it to the bones - ouch!). But, it could be cheaper. I figure that if you can already track a single point with cameras, you can track a whole bunch - so just glue those points onto the body. Use 3M reflective tape, and "light" the user up with IR (or near IR) light - and remove any IR filters from the cameras. The points should stand out well.
Thanks for the link and info about JG - I hadn't tried that one. I sent an email to Raytheon asking for information - if he still worked there. If I don't get a response, I will try the school as well.
My hope is to get a CD-ROM or such with all the articles on it, in some document format, that I could turn into PDFs or HTML, and put up on my site for others to use. At minimum, I would like to put up selected articles. But, I have to get permission before I can legally do this (one thing I wonder - if I can never contact him, can I legally re-publish, as long as I can prove that I tried everything I could to contact him? - Ahh, an issue for a lawyer, no doubt)...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
What places sell these (OLEDs)? - I wouldn't mind knowing myself...
I think for the full body thing you could get by with a better QuickCam type device doing 640x480 - maybe use multiple ones on USB and custom software. Or, have a video capture card (like a WinTV or similar), and some kind of video switcher to swap between cameras. Your biggest issue is once again, the software needed to make it work (two cameras could track a point in 3D space, though - in theory).
The link you gave to the Images Company seems neat - I will have to go over that site with a fine-toothed comb, later...
My HMD is a cheapo Stuntmaster - my original one cost me $250.00, open-box item at Best Buy - I bought it in late 1993, when it first came out. You can now sometimes get them on Ebay and other places for less than $50.00 (my other two cost me less than $50.00 for both). It isn't great, but boy is it cheap! The optics and LCDs from the other system I got from Halted a couple of years back (www.halted.com). When Victormaxx went out of business, Halted bought a bunch of the parts, which were quickly snatched up. I managed to get some, enough to build a single HMD. It is also possible to build a fairly good quality HMD using hand-held TVs and such. Takes a lot of work, but is supposedly worth it in the end (PCVR ran quite a few articles on doing this).
I didn't get the email you sent me: Did you send it to the right address? Remember to take out the NOSPAM (some people forget)...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
It actually is an advancement over the tech used in the Matrix. It is pretty cool, too - too bad I am not a huge football fan by any means.
Essentially, in the Matrix still cameras were used, all fired in sequence, aranged "around" the point of action. This "in action" panning strip was then enhanced/scrubbed with a computer to make it cleaner, and more presentable.
What is being done in the Superbowl is similar - but replace each still camera with a video camera, and feed the frames in a computer. Now, as the action is going on at the "action point", you have 33 streams, all from different angles, running and capturing frames. Now, think of these strips of frames - if you played all 33 in sync (so that frame 1 of strip A is played at the same time as frame 1 of strip B), and switched "along" the sequence of the 33 cameras, you could get full video along those points, at any angle. Or, you could show various angles (as seen from camera 27). Pan from 1 to 33, while moving the video forward, or reverse, and you have full motion panning, through time, along an arc.
Then, the CBS engineers go one step further - they have mounted all of these video cameras on robotic pan/tilt/zoom platforms - very precise platforms - all working in concert to all point at the same 3D coordinate in the stadium. I would imagine the software to be quite complex to manage all of that, to manage the calculations, the control, the capture, playback, review, etc. The system to store the video frame streams would have to be pretty huge as well, to do it all in real time, at TV quality, for over 30 streams. I mean, for one stream at 16 bit quality - 30 fps - say 640x480 video - for one second of video that would be 17 MB! Over 30 streams would be half a gig - every second! I would imagine a parallel video RAID-like system for this, to get a few seconds of video. Entirely doable, very custom, I would imagine.
I am sure these cameras can also be used in "teams" as well, or individually. I think (I could be wrong here) that the motion of the streams would cancel out the need to do real-time interpolation of the images as was done for the Matrix (which was done because the raw strip of images was very jumpy). I might be wrong about that, though (depending on how far apart the cameras are spaced would determine the jumpiness as well)...
All I can say, if what I am thinking is correct - is wow!
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F...ing slashcode! There is supposed to be no blank space between the P and E on that second link...
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http://www.the-labs.com/Video/m atik.tu-chemnitz.de/~jan/MPEG/MP EG_Play.html
http://rnvs.infor
http://www.dcc.uchile.cl/~chasan/ (this guy supposedly had a Java player, but it isn't there anymore)
And of course:
http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/index.html
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While I doubt it is free, you might look at ClipStream, which is a Java based streaming system (so it can be done - now, is there an open source solution, and better yet, GPL'd?)...
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Couldn't some form of an applet on the client side handle this? Sure, it couldn't be very big images, but I would think it would be possible. You might have to come up with some custom streaming format, or use one currently available. I would imagine it depends on what you are trying to stream (a talking head, or an advertisement, or something else), to determine what kind of quality you want in the end. I think it would be possible though to write some server code and a java applet that could handle it all (though only at a low to medium quality).
I thought I remember seeing this done a long while back, when applets were everywhere, Real was just starting out, and streaming video was still an "idea" for later...
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Very interesting column - I think that is the first I have heard about using UV to ionize the air - can this info on Tesla using it with klieg lights be verified in any way (I have the major Tesla books, so if somebody can give me a reference)...
I have heard about building a funky "smoke-ring" gun, that shoots ammonia gas rings, thereby setting up a path to "shoot" a branch of lightning down with a Tesla coil.
As far as the voice-to-skull (VTS) tech is concerned - I ran across this, and started investigating what I could dig up on the net - NASA has done research on it, and I read about the modulated microwave experiments, and there are patents out for ultrasonic versions (in which ultrasound acts as the carrier wave, and the ultrasounds is attenuated and stripped from the sound source via the skull).
Some strange stuff out there they don't want you to know about!
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PCVR was a very small magazine - though they did start to get "slick" towards the end (even had a full color front and back!). Like I said, good luck in finding it. I will look at the address you sent, but I have probably already tried to contact it. I did a very deep search...
Yeah, I started looking into Waldern/Virtuality connection - they are still in business - as CyberMind (http://www.cybermind.co.uk/).
From what I understand, there are transmitting "antennas" (basically each is a loop antenna, probably several turns) in the base of the unit, and each sensor has three orthogonally aligned coils in it (very small, many hundred turn coils). Each antenna is "pulsed", and each coil in the sensor is read to get a reading. The phase angle of the pulse in each coil indicates the orientation of the sensor, while the strength (amplitude) of the pulse indicates distance from that particular coil. At minimum, three pulses are required for a full reading (where all three of the orthogonal coils are read at one time), or maximum, nine pulses are required (three from each base coil to each coil in the sensor). Then a ton of math is performed to determine the distance from the base coil to the sensor, and orientation. Someone once sent me some math for my "idea" at implementing this - I may have it up on my site (maybe)...
If you are going to work with a manufacturer to build these things (the OLED displays), are you thinking of building a whole "ton" of them - in order to get the cost down (ie, this is not homebrew VR at this point, it is commercial R&D in VR)?
The camera/digitizing system could be used for full body VR interaction, and has seen a little bit of homebrew use (look into the Mandela system - IIRC - and there was also a game controlled by movements seen by a Quickcam). Most of the expense would be in writing the software to interpret the motions, but it can be done with reasonably powerful hardware.
Force feedback at the hand level is complicated, simply because of the bulk. I am sure, homebrew wise, it would be cheap enough to try a piezo/muscle wire combo to product feedback.
Regarding needing the hardware before the software - that was my dillema - I had the hardware, but no way to get the VGA signal to the HMD (I going old-skool route here). I finally picked up an Averkey iMicro, and it works great with my HMD (currently a hacked Stuntmaster, but later will be trying the Halted specialty - ie, Cybermaxx optics and displays, all canned in a custom HMD - I am also toying with the idea of taking two Stuntmaster displays, and building one HMD). Now that I have a display, I want to put together the rest of the hardware (including an interesting sourceless head tracking device that I have planned), so I can do the coding for...
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And would be praised by amateur astronomers (and probably a few professionals as well):
Turn off a few (actually, many) of those damn lights in cities and towns!
I live on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona, and the glow from the light in the city is INSANE. All night long, lights are on. Most of these are unneeded - security lights that don't really provide security, merely the illusion of it. Lights that point up onto billboards, instead of down from above. If these lights were installed and designed in a proper manner, fewer could be used to achieve the same desired result, at a savings of energy at night.
How about using LED lights for stop lights? How about designing homes for the environment (ie, small windows on the south/east/west sides - solar cooling, etc)? How about using more fluorescent lights and other energy efficient lights?
Really, the thing is to use less light, not more - we get all kinds of free light most days in most areas, yet we still light up the insides of offices with electricity! Does anyone remember the fiber optic light pipes used in Japan? From sun tracking collectors on the roof, sunlight could be piped into rooms via fiber. Solatubes work in a cruder, though less expensive, fashion.
I know this isn't the complete answer, and I don't want to do away with electric light. I am sure there are a bunch of other things that could be done, but using less electric lights would go a long way...
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Good luck in find PCVR - if you are ever able to track down the publisher (Joseph Gradecki), let him know about me, and that I am interested in talking with him about republishing PCVR. Like I said, I have all the copies, but no legal ground to stand on trying to republish. I sent a letter to his last known address (I got it from his publisher of a recent book on network gaming he did), and received it back "return to sender".
I am not sure if you can distribute the database this way or not (via an RMI model). Sure sounds like it would be worth pursuing. Really what you are talking about is building a distributed database model, and miniturising the interface hardware (by this I mean the hardware and software that works on the world model).
The pods you speak of (Waldern-style? Never heard of it, but sounds suspiciously like W Industries former design - is that where the W comes from?) are not designed that way so much for tracking, but for keeping the participants from hurting themselves. It is actually a nice design. But the tracking doesn't rely on the pods. You see, there are sensors placed on the HMD, the glove/handheld wand/joystick, and perhaps even the fanny pack (though this is unlikely, as the player doesn't really need to know which way their body is oriented, only the head and hand(s)). These sensors contain coils that sense electromagnetic pulses, and based on the orientation and distance of the sensor, and some complex math, determine the yaw/pitch/roll and x/y/z of the sensor. It doesn't matter if you do the calculation on the body or off the body, though if you could put everything on the body (like an ultimate wearable), then you would only need one link to the outside - wired or wireless.
I don't think you will be able to build what you are asking for what you are asking. A lot of the professional HMDs use an optical system known as LEEP - which, from what I understand, manages to give a bright and wide FOV, with low distortion. It is a very high-tech set of optics, and they don't come cheap. Those that don't use this system, still use fairly expensive optics. If you want to know what professional optics cost, take a look sometime in an Edmond Scientific Optics catalog, and be amazed. A high quality prism can set you back $20-50 dollars easily!
BTW - how were you going to use OLEDs? Do they make these in panels? Or only single "lights"? If it is the latter, then you will be facing the challenge of either building your own panel (good luck), or making a scanning system. Either way will be too expensive.
Powergloves are hard to come by - I actually think the glove paradigm is only good for a few special cases (mainly where you need to manipulate things), though such devices hold promise of acting as a good interface (ie, hand/finger signals). You could build your own glove, and even build your own sensing system - perhaps using IR sensors, or using a camera and digitising software, or other means. The camera system would be good from the standpoint that it is the most lightweight - you would probably not have to wear anything to use it - or at worst, a colored lycra glove.
I really don't think the main costs are in the designing of the hardware for homebrew VR. While the upfront costs of these components can be expensive, what really will cost is the software. VR is very much a multi-displined art right now - to participate, one must, almost without exception, be a deft with a soldering iron as one is with code. This is only because there is so little off-the-shelf hardware and parts to incorporate easily in the design, and what little there is, may not work with your platform of software (ie, the Powerglove is meant for the Nintendo - but it has to be hacked for the PC, and only there will it work up to a 486 - because the drivers have hard-coded timing loops, due to the bit-banger interface - one would have to recode for this, or build a hardware interface, like the Menelli box).
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Yeah - I heard about this a while back, and my GF's friend's daughter ('s barber's cousin's brother...) has it. That is the only install of it I have seen in the entire valley. The picture is good (same as COX Digital), but the menuing options and other things aren't as refined.
There is no advertisement that I have found anywhere in the valley for this service. I am not even sure why they offer it...
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While this is a good thing and all for Linux advocacy to the unwashed masses of PHBs, it really is only as good as the announcement.
I won't consider Compaq, Dell or any others to be truely supporting Linux until:
a. Linux is an option in paper catalogs.
b. A server w/Linux pre-installed costs less than the equivalent NT version.
I only say this because I would think PHBs and CTOs look more at paper catalogs than anything online (ooh - glossy paper)...
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I would have to say, during my high school years, was a man by the name of Peter Schwartz (I think that is the spelling). He was my high school physics teacher, during my senior year (at Bakersfield High School, in 1990-91). I don't say he was my best teacher because he helped me in any particular way (not that he helped me to learn difficult physics concepts - he did), but how I saw him act as a teacher.
He was a "strange" individual - and he truely was an individual, going against the grain in every respect. He tended to wear strange clothing (one day he came in with two different color socks - both were a hideous orange and green plaid, but a different pattern on each). He was a vegetarian (he once had for lunch a brocoli and garlic yogurt - one guy in our class said he tried it, and it wasn't bad - but it didn't sound good). He rode his bike to school - every day - no matter how cold, rainy or foggy it was. He would help students any time of the day, and stay as long as was necessary to help a student (even to 9 or 10pm!), then he would ride his bike back home. He was a dedicated teacher. He always made experiments in physics interesting - it was always hands on (one experiment he helped us to do, at the end of finals - was quantitatively figuring out the mass of an electron - using an old ocilloscope and some other equipment and algorithms. I remember that the mass that was found was only off by a couple of magnitudes - which is not that big of a deal, given the equipment we had to work with). He was a very dedicated teacher.
I don't think one student left that class without learning something - from the smartest individual, to the dumbest (or least interested).
He only taught there for that one year, as a break away from his work on his doctorate (I believe) thesis involving plasma physics (using a Tokamak at PPL) - from what he told us, he couldn't complete his work because someone fried the startup capacitor bank. He had the incomplete thesis in class - huge thing. From what I understand, he had degrees from both MIT and Princeton, had done the Peace Corp thing - and was teaching us. His age: 25.
Our school lost a great individual when he left after that year. It was truely a loss. I caught up with him later via email at the PPL - he told me he was doing reseach in Materials Science. Don't know what he is doing now.
If you read this Mr. Schwartz - I thank you for the impact you had on all of us. Good luck in your future life...
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Ok, this is understandable - but something must be done to keep that list from being used as a mailing list (or resold as a mailing list)...
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It has absolutely nothing to do with copying - it's whole reason for existance is for content control. The only part they never mention is that it wouldn't have teeth if not for the DMCA and in the future, if more states pas it, the UCITA...
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The Robin Hollands book is actually one of the better ones out there. It is really too bad that you can't get back issues of PCVR anymore. I have all of them, and the info available in them is nothing short of amazing.
Even with those specs, the PSC1000 is still just a small CPU - it sounds like it would make a great system for robotics, though. I imagine you could build a dedicated VR system, but it will be a TON of development work. You state it would be tailored to the task, but in the end, it is a VR system running on the CPU. You say it would be better than VR->Windows->DOS->i386, but the fat of the matter is I wouldn't build a VR system that way anyhow. An ideal VR system will have multiple boxes: One handling input, one handling video, one handling audio, a controller box, and a backend DB server. Emphasis would be placed on the graphics, controller, and DB server. I would put an RTOS on the graphics, audio, and input servers, the rest could be normal OS machines. Have them all communicate via 100BaseT ethernet over a switch. Essentially a distributed processing system.
High-end HMDs are expensive mainly due to the resolution and optics used - were talking quality stuff here. I consider an HMD high-end when it starts to cost over $1000.00 - maybe a bit higher (some of the mid-range HMDs have come down in price). Consumer HMDs can't compare.
LCDs aren't outdated for homebrew HMDs. A couple of nice TFT LCDs from a couple of hand-held TV's can actually give great results, much better than what was affordable in 1991. It is also possible to get small full color CRT displays for a resonable price. Even shutter glasses can be good, once you start homebrewing your own CAVE system (not that I have ever done such, but it is possible).
I can see using the device as part of a system - maybe as one of those "boxes" I mentioned, since you could actually make it real-time or near real-time with custom coding. With enough of them, your final box might very well be the backend DB server, and the graphics display box (I am thinking something like a 1 GHz machine with a very nice 3D accelerator on it). Doing calcs for some of the hard stuff would be nice too, to get the data as a serial stream in regular ASCII format. But for triangulation, you obviously don't need to use something like this - the Powerglove gave the information in units properly, and it didn't need such a processor. I would say a PIC would suffice for that stuff.
If you manage to create anything interesting, let me know - I would love to learn more about it...
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I hate spam (gee, can you tell?) - but so far we have to live with it. The only spam I allow to go through is that in which the TO: contains my real email address. And half the time, that gets deleted as well.
Send only text messages - I hate adverts that have to spend time download crap from another site.
Put [adv] in the subject line, so that those who want to filter for advertisements can.
Put a real return address on it, and honor the requests from people who ask to be removed from the list - and actually remove them - don't just set a flag saying they were removed. Don't build up a second list, either.
Provide real contact info on the email - Name of company, address, phone numbers - in short, make it look like a professional piece of correspondance. Anything less is just crap.
Now, if you did this, and sent the email to me - would I like it, as it is obviously SPAM? Probably not, unless you were really selling something I wanted. But I would be more respectful toward the way you handled it than if you didn't...
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I can't remember the title, but it was for the Atari 2600 - I played it as a kid on my uncle's system.
I remember that you were a dot or something, and you went around these "rooms" collecting treasures and avoiding traps. There were so many treasure, like a diamond, and things - and each room was like a maze, or a trap - with walls, etc. I remember one room had these walls that if you didn't time it right, would crush you between them.
It was called "Treasure of the ???" or something similar (maybe it was a single word?).
I know this is very vague and all, but if someone could tell me, or give me a "possibles" list (or links to screenshots, maybe) - that would be real helpful. I have been searching for this game for a loooong time, and maybe this guy has it?
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The article noted that the idea of creating a spherical motor has been around for a while, but that the placement of the magnets was what was holding it back. They go on to say that the key was equidistant placement of the magnets...
This sounds wrong to me - they have great minds working on this, but no one in a long time thinks about placing the magnets equally distant from each other (sorta like, uh, I don't know - like a NORMAL AXIAL MOTOR?)...
They also go on to say that the math to equidistantly place the magnets was difficult, but did anyone see that the pattern looked similar to that of the vertices of a geodesic sphere? The math for creating geodesic spheres has been around for quite a while...
I am not saying this couldn't be a useful invention - but something just seems odd that it took so long to create (looking at it, I bet you could build one yourself using parts from a hardware store, All Electronics, and the pet store - for hamster play balls)...
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Basically, this chip is a 32 bit CPU - so you are asking how you build VR hardware out of a CPU? Short answer is, you don't - you need a whole lot more than just a CPU (though it might make for an interesting starting point).
Cheap VR hardware isn't built from the ground up in this fashion. While it is feasible to build cheaper HMDs in this manner, you would still be using mostly OTS (off the shelf) hardware for the display electronics. Building your own display (I am not talking the optics, etc - just the display) is a possibility, but you will spend a bit of money and time doing it (it is simply the scale of manufacturing - it is always more expensive to build just one, than it is to build a whole mess, and this savings really is passed on to the customer, in an OTS item - like an LCD TV - that you would use in a VR system).
I am not trying to discourage you - if you have the money and the time, by all means go for it. But what you are asking would be akin to asking "Hey guys, I have this bolt here - how do I go about building a car with it?".
In closing, I would like to add that if you are really interested in cheap, homebrew VR techniques, check out my site. I have a ton of collected information there, that you would probably find very useful in pursuit of low-cost VR.
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While production costs between hardbacks and softbacks aren't much different, you do get more value with a hardback. Typically, hardbacks use a better paper, and of course the binding is better, plus the hardbacking protects the book more.
If it is a book you are likely to keep a long time (more than 5 years), get it in hardback. While paperbacks last that long and longer, I have seen some go yellow inside that time (though I do have paperbacks from the 50's that look just fine, go figure). Typically, a hardback book will litterally last a lifetime (and longer).
Actually, if I had my choice, some of the books I have would be on vellum with hard leather or wooden covers (such as my hardback copies of Tolkien). However, since I am not rich and can't get the custom printing and binding done, this will probably be forever a dream...
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Ah, so that's what happened. I just say this because one of my former employers used to have a Prime mini-computer cabinet - big thing - they used it mainly as a rack mount cabinet. Was beige, with a red strip across the top in front, with white lettering reading "Big Red" - I still don't know what that means...
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You got modded up as "Insightful" - can you explain you comment? Exactly how does it bypass the "need"? Are you saying this because you can hook it up to a monitor (potentially higher res)? Or for some other reason?
I am interested in hearing your thoughts on this...
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