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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Happy new year ! Let it be full of happiness and success, virtual and real =)
Lately I’ve been reading  articles by some so-called journalists saying VR was one of the biggest technology flops in the last 20 years. If you’re reading this blog, you know they have missed a big part of hystory.

So I’ve decided to write a series of article about the state of VR, what can be done, what are the applications and the current hardware. Hopefully those ‘journalists’ will learn to do some research before writing such crappy articles.

VR is not yet mainstream, but it sure is already a success!

Read The state of Virtual Reality now.

The full article will probably be published on VResources when I’m done with it so that the community can improve on it.

Tags: VR Applications, VR Devices, VR Displays

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Alex Bouchet showed me those two vintage videos of the early days of the CAVE :

“(1991) before the CAVE was called “The CAVE” it was internally named the Pocket Cathedral (actually it was called the Closet Cathedral - or the Closet for short).
The CAVE was invented by the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago.”

It seems CAVE stood for Cave Audio Visual Environment, then Cave Automatic Virtual Environment.

Dan Sandin says that CAVE refers to “both the early cave paintings and to the shadows of the ideal forms in Plato’s cave”.

(Update: Here’s another good introductory video to the CAVE system : 1993)

Tags: Art, cathedral, cave, evl, history, Virtual Reality, VR Displays

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The DLP 3D technology is reaching mass market!

This ZDNet article says that those TVs “which uses DLP-based rear projection and ranging in price from $1499 to $4500″.

Moreover, Mitsubishi is planning 3D Blu-Ray player for early 2008.
From the DLP official site :

DLP® 3-D HDTV System Requirements:
• A DLP® 3-D Ready HDTV offered by either Mitsubishi or Samsung
• VESA compatible LCD shutter glasses and sync signal transmitter
• Video or graphics source which shows 3-D pictures using DLP® HDTV 3-D format.

Advantages of DLP® 3-D HDTV technology

- The DLP® 3-D HDTV technology supplies a 60Hz frame rate signal to each eye (equivalent to 120 Hz).

- The technology has a virtually zero implementation cost on new DLP® HDTV, benefiting consumers with a future proof capability.

DLP® HDTV 3-D Image Format

3-D stereoscopic video content is sent to the TV digitally, through an HDMI or DVI port. Left and right stereo images are independently filtered, then sampled in an offset grid pattern. The resulting views are then combined, and appear as a left and right checkerboard pattern in a conventional orthogonal sampled image. This format preserves the horizontal and vertical resolution of the left and right views providing the viewer with the highest quality image possible with the available bandwidth.

This whitepaper has more information about the image format.

Tags: Active Stereoscopy, DLP, HDTV, mitsubishi, Norm, Projector, samsung, Stereoscopy, TV, Virtual Reality DIY, VR Displays

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Sorry for the lack of updates, I didn’t find time nor something enough interesting to say lately =)

Here are two videos I found through this article about the Mersive technology, which “allows you to combine low cost projectors and display technologies into high resolution; large scale displays that are cost effective and easy to setup and maintain.”

Tags: Blending, mersive, Projector, VR Displays, Warping

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From a Siggraph 2007 paper, heres’ an interesting new display technology “for an autostereoscopic light field display able to present interactive 3D graphics to multiple simultaneous viewers 360 degrees around the display.”.

This video (86.6MB, (Quicktime h264) ) shows it all.

(thanks to Daniel Neveux for the link

[Update: the youtube video : ]

Tags: autostereoscopic, siggraph, VR Displays

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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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The newly formed AFRV [ French Association for VR/AR and 3D interaction ] is publishing some informal statistics about the state of VR in France in its “Journal de l’AFRV” (available to members). These stats are for general information purpose only and shouldn’t be regarded as official statistics.
The most interesting figures are :

- ~500 people are working in VR/AR; Researchers/Teachers (51%), PhD candidates (34%), engineers & technicians (14%).

- The majority of research is done about VR only, much less about AR only (often VR+AR).
- There is an important number of groups that use VR without doing research about these technologies (18/39), which represent 100/460 people.

- The research is done, by decreasing order, in the medical field, product conception, transportation, education, human studies, scientific data exploration, architecture, sport, game, archelogy, art, geoscience, energy, military, domotic.

- No group is doing fundamental research on VR/AR. It seems to always be applied research.

- The equipment is, by decreasing order, tracking devices, feedback/haptics devices, stereoscopic display, big screen (<10m²), data glove (no haptics), HMD, 3d sound, immersive room (>10m²), speech recognition, CAVE or approaching (6!), workbench, tactile feedback, treadmill …

If you add all the VR students that come out of schools every year, that makes a lot of VR enthousiasts in France

Tags: afrv, Augmented Reality, statistics, Virtual Reality, VR Applications, VR Devices, 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 first public presentation of the Khufu experience on the 24th May 2007 went extremely well. The show received a lot of praise. Lots of questions were asked at the end, and Jean-Pierre Houdin happily answered them all.

For those of you who missed it, the Khufu experience is back tuesday 19th june 2007 at LaGeode. Click here to book, the seats are selling fast!Here’s a gallery of photos I took during the all the preparation and shows.

Right click > View Image to get full view of the following samples :

- Fabien Barati (Emissive) and David Nahon (Virtools) -

- Jean-Pierre Houdin answering questions at the end of the show -

- Laurent Dondey (La Géode), Mehdi Tayoubi (Dassault Systèmes), Jean-Pierre Houdin (Egyptologist) and Fabien Barati (Emissive) -

- Fabien facing his world -

- This is not in the show, but I like this picture! -

And for your eyes only, a dark video of what you can expect at the end of the show. A great ride, where pilot Fabien Barati (co-owner of Emissive,with Emmanuel Guerriero, the company that made the application) leads the audience at full speed across the scene with an incredible dexterity. Sensations are guaranteed.

Of course it’s so much better on the real screen with the stereoscopy !!

Tags: Archeology, houdin, kheops, khufu, pyramid, Stereoscopy, theory, VR Applications, VR Displays

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