Updates

[ 23 Jul 2008 : Added Workbench and Cave videos]

Index

- Projectors based

- HMD, VR Goggles

Projectors Based

The most impressive and immersive is the Cave system (also called SasCube, Move, Cube…). It’s a cube of at least 3×3x3m with at least four faces displaying stereoscopic images. The Cave at Iowa State University has just been upgraded and now has a resolution of 100 million pixels, featuring 96 GPUs and 24 Sony digital projectors.

© Arnaud Muthelet

Multiple users can fit in a Cave, enabling collaboration. Note that as of now, the displayed images have the correct perspective for a maximum of two users, and multiple-user interaction is not yet the norm.

(c) S. Kuntz

Then several systems with digital projectors exist, from the Holobench and Holostage to the Reality Center and a “simple” mono or multi-projectors wall.

Holobench - Photos © PSA Peugeot Citroën Mediatheque.

A Wall © Arnaud Muthelet

A Reality Center © Arnaud Muthelet

An HoloStage © Arnaud Muthelet

Panoscope (c) Laval Virtual

The Matsushita Electronics Hemispheric Dome  is an hemispherical screen of 8.5 meters in inside diameter, 18 projectors, with stereo images projected on the screen having a wide field of view (FOV) of 180 degrees in horizontal and 150 degrees in vertical directions.

Now that the traditional theaters are buying digital projectors that have great chances of being able to display 3D pictures. As 3D movies are coming back, we should consider them as potential VR centers !

That’s why the biggest VR display is in Paris, in the famous La Géode theater that also hosts an Imax projector.

(c) S. Kuntz

(c) Dassault Systèmes

HMD, VR Goggles

There is an impressive number of Head Mounted Displays (HMD) on the market. Some of them are getting more attention :

(c) S. Kuntz

- the eMagin Z800 seems to be the most successful. Priced at1500$, it has very nice displays (OLED, 800×600), but disappointing integrated trackers.

(c) Trimersion

- the Trimersion has the big advantage of being wireless and cheap (600$). Small resolution (640×480) and probably crappy integrated trackers. Note that the gun is not tracked.

(c) Sensics

- the piSight Sensics is a panoramic HMD, with a field of view up to 180°, and up to 4200×2400 pixels per eye ! It is made up of several OLED 800×600 displays (built by eMagin). The main problem is that if it is not perfectly setup on your head, you can see the seams between those displays. And it’s very expensive.

Tags: Active Stereoscopy, cave, DLP, emagin, HMD, Holobench, LCD, Passive, reference, resource, sensics, Stereoscopy, trimersion, Virtual Reality, VR Displays

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Ken Wittlief, a senior engineer at Vuzix (formerly  Icuiti Corp), “makers of VideoEyewear and other micro display systems”, has written an excellent article about do’s and don’ts when creating a stereoscopic entertainment. Here are some highlights of the article, but I highly recommend you to read it all :

(…) our depth perception is only good out to approximately 200 yards. Beyond that distance everything appears to be flat, and we use sideways motion to judge distances. (…)

The first rule of getting it right: you have to know how the images will be viewed. You are creating a virtual space in front of the viewer and you must know what that space is, before you can start placing shapes and objects at different distances. The reward for your attention to this detail is that it is possible to create images that will appear to exist in real space, across the front of the theater, extending halfway out the screen towards the viewer, and receding back for 200 yards or more.

(…) Focus is an issue with no easy solution. The best we can do with existing systems is to not violate the convergence/focus lock the viewers eyes have learned over their lifetime too harshly. [Don’t] push objects off the screen more than half the distance to the viewer (…).

(…) The average person has an Inter Pupil Distance (IPD) of 2.5 inches.   (…)  limit the separation on the screen to the minimum IPD that might be present in the audience: around 2 inches.

(…)  The second rule for getting it right: don’t turn the audience into giants! You must use the correct camera separation for the camera field of view. For animation this means that first you must put your viewer into the virtual space itself. If you are animating bugs then how tall is your viewer? Do you want it to feel like the person watching the film is 6 feet tall, looking at bugs on the ground? Or do you want to bring your viewer down to bug size, so his eyes (your cameras) are the same distance apart as the bugs eyes?

(…) The third rule for getting it right: set your cameras to converge on the most distant objects in view, and adjust your separation so that infinity is 2 inches apart at the screen, and let the foreground objects find their own place in that space. Resist the temptation to converge your cameras on the center of attention. If you really want to lock the viewers attention on one area, then use a depth of focus effect to blur the rest of the image, so the viewer will not be inclined to look around the area at other things.

(…) The fourth rule for getting it right: you must know the timing of the projection system. (…) But when objects move quickly there comes a point when your brain sees the left view in one place, and the right view in another place, but then the left view has moved considerably and your brain cannot pull them together. The result is you see two objects: the stereoscopic 3D effect is lost.

Tags: HMD, icuiti, reference, Stereoscopy, vuzix

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The guys at EVL are posting a lot of videos !!

Those two show a state of VR in 1993, with an impressive list of videos and applications. It would be really nice to have one such video now =)

Tags: cave, evl, history, HMD, OldSchool, reference, video

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Did you know that in 1995 Nintendo released a portable VR console, called the Virtual Boy ? With a monochrome stereoscopic HMD with a 384×224 resolution, it was priced at 180$ and reportedly Nintendo sold 700′000 units. The failure of the system had them discontinue the project one year later.

A bit sooner, Sega also tried to release a VR console [and wikipedia here] in 1994, with LCD screens and inertial trackers:

The Sega VR console combined full color LCD screens and stereo sound. Weight was distrusted evenly, and the device was reported to be comfortable. Also, unlike the Virtual Boy, it was truly portable, not requiring a cumbersome tripod for enjoyable game play.

(…)

Due to limited resources, strategic planning, the complete and utter failure of Nintendo’s Virtual Boy, underwhelming graphics and performance, as well as motion sickness, Sega was wise in not bringing this cliché console to the market.

The company claimed the project was stopped because the VR was so real users would move while wearing the headset and injure themselves.

Hum. Lol.. =)

[update : here’s a video of the ad]

Tags: Anaglyph, console, Game, HMD, nintendo, OldSchool, sega, Stereoscopy, Virtual Reality, VR Applications

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Marc Bernatchez, from VResources, has an interesting article about comparing HMDs. He compares angular resolution, field of view, stereo overlapping, and the relevance of all these factors when compared to human visual abilities.

For example, here’s the summary of the angular resolution analysis :

Tags: HMD, Product Review, VR Displays

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I wrote an extensive review of the eMagin Z800 HMD for VResources.org. Go read it now to know everything you want to know about this HMD

Tags: emagin, HMD, Product Review, VR Displays, z800

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The Crescent HEWDD-768 HMD was presented at Laval Virtual 2007. It is being improved and will be showcased on July 13th 2007 at Laval, in Nautilus buildings. Contact Gilles Brossard for more information about the HMD or the demo.

Tags: crescent, hewdd, HMD, VR Displays

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When I learned that eMagin increased their prices, I went back to look for other consumer HMDs. I contacted the makers of the Trimersion to know more about their tracking options.

Bob Ladrach, President and Chief Operating Officer of 3001 AD, makers of the Trimersion, answered me. He’s quite a VR geek too as you’ll see He shares his insight about the beginnings of the HMD and his thoughts about VR …

Read more…

Tags: bobladrach, history, HMD, inertial, people, Stereoscopy, trimersion, VR Displays

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The eMagin Z800 was the closest thing to a good consumer HMD, at a somewhat affordable $599. The only reason why I didn’t buy it yet is that I haven’t been able to test it yet. But last week eMagin decided to increase the price to a much much less affordable $1,499.00, with the hardware being exactly the same ! ! !

It seems that eMagin is much less interested in gamers than in commercial an military applications, although their webpage still puts a lot of emphasize on gaming.
I’m really surprised and sad about that fact. Does it mean the market is still not ready? Will a price increase help the consumer market? Will the price decrease once the commercial market is good enough? Why don’t they make a commercial price and a consumer price, just like 3dConnexion Space Navigator SE?

For the last two weeks I have been able to test a Virtual Research V6 (640×480) and a Virtual Research 1280 (1280×1024) both with a 60° field of view diagonal. And guess what? the V6 is much more comfortable to use! Even if you have big pixels, having a constant head movement (read, you’re not still) and putting some antialising gives a really great immersion feeling.

This is due to the optic lens that stands between your eyes and the displays. The lens of the V6 is much more tolerant to where you put your eyes. Even if you’re not exactly where the eye is supposed to be, you won’t be bothered by the induced deformation. This is more a problem on the VR 1280, and much, much more a problem on the piSight Sensics.

I’d still like to try the eMagin z800 though, but also the Trimersion HMD which seems to have a tracking option.

Are they other options out there for an affordable 3D HMD, possibly with tracking?

Tags: emagin, HMD, Price, Virtual Reality DIY, VR Displays, z800

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I’ve had the chance to test the famous Sensics piSight yesterday. I could only test it for 5 mins, and I think more time would be needed for a better review. Particularly, I’d like to have more time to compare it with a CAVE. Anyway, here’s what I have to say for the moment. I’ll try to compare it to other HMDs and CAVEs.

The piSight is a panoramic HMD, involving 12 (4×3) 800×600 LCDs per eye. So it’s 24 LCDs you have to feed. You can find detailed specifications here. It was running Virtools VRPack demos.

<insert here legal rant about how these are my own personnal opinions and not my employer’s etc..>

- Here’s how I look with it -

- The global design -

- You can see the different lenses here -

On the plus side :

• It’s cheaper and much more transportable than a CAVE. (Note that the SASCube was designed with portability in mind, but you still need one full day to set it up.)
• Compared to other HMDs it’s really panoramic, and that makes a great difference! Much higher resolution too. Higher resolution per degree compared to a CAVE.
• The overlap is good, so you have a good stereoscopic vision.
• It’s light, 1kg
• I wasn’t ill in it, and I’m very sensible to simulators sickness.
• Compared to a CAVE, you have much more liberty of movement (provided that you have a long enough cable and tracking coverage)
• You can buy a HMD with more or less LCDs displays. And if one day you want more, you can easily upgrade, just send it back to Sensics and they’ll send it back to you upgraded.
• Good integration in Virtools VRPack.

On the negative side :

• Calibration : compared to a CAVE where you simply have to wear the shutter glasses, the calibration phase is cumbersome and needs adjustments for each user. And if it’s not perfect, you’ll have artifacts (lenses/displays seams, blur) that really prevent a good immersion. Moreover, you’re not sure when it’s good. You nearly don’t see the seams anymore, but you’re still trying to have a better position. They should have a calibration world, maybe with lines that should be sharp and aligned. Anyway, the calibration phase should really be improved.
• There was dust on several parts of the displays
• The head attachment was a bit loose for me, so when I moved my head, the HMD didn’t exactly follow my head, so the calibration was wrong. I saw the seams and I had to move the HMD back to a good position. I know some people managed to get it tight.
• The lenses are calibrated to work when you look straight ahead, so when you roll your eyes to see on the sides, you start seeing the seams and lose immersion.
• Even with what I thought was a good calibration, I saw differences between displays of one given eye, as if one lens was not totally identical to the others. That disturbed me and at some point I couldn’t see anything but this. But maybe I was too concentrated on trying to find the weaknesses of the display =)

So what’s the conclusion? The panoramic view is really interesting, but the calibration is too imprecise and the slightest movement of the HMD from your head can untune the settings. It didn’t impress me as much as a CAVE or a SASCube. They are still my favorites. This is a gut feeling, not a reasonned one =) I’m in love with CAVEs lol. There are lots of applications when you would use such a HMD. For example I know some scientists are working on movement ancticipation and need the user to physically walk for several meters. This is not possible in a CAVE where most of the movements are made with a joystick. But given an unlimited budget/room space and no good reason to favor a HMD, I’d still use a CAVE.

But as Philippe David once stated in a presentation, and I tend to agree with him, HMDs are the way to go. Or direct retinal display, or hack the optical nerve or whatever. CAVEs are just a hack while waiting for this to come. But there’s still a lot of work to get a perfect HMD, whereas I’m completely in love with the immersion in CAVEs right now.

So we need companies like Sensics to push the HMD forward! Moreover they’re thinking about having mass market HMDs one day! In the meantime I hope they’ll get a better calibration procedure and that they’ll resolve their small optics side-effects. Maybe by using OLED displays they could get rid of the all the lenses and make only one big curved display? Dream on, dream on, ’til your dreams come true =)

Tags: HMD, LCD, pisight, Product Review, review, sensics, Virtools, Virtual Reality, VR Displays, VR Displays

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