KeckCAVES "Highlight Reel"

[houstondodgeball]

7:45 don't jump! Oh wait it's not real. I was actually hoping she would jump to see how it would look.

[robinsahlberg]

now thats awesome.

[brandon9271]

wow.. this video proves to me that motion parallax or whatever its called adds just as much immersion as stereoscopic 3D.. maybe even more so. I want to build my own CAVE! :D

[tcresidents]

It does add a lot, but only when used in conjunction with steroscopy. The main reason for this is you are watching this video in 2D, hence everything you see is on the zero plane so looks like it is the same distance from the viewer. If you were actually in there it wouldnt look right without steroscopy to resolve the actual distance your eyes are from each part of each object on the different screens.

[spelunkerucd]

To be precise, neither stereo nor head tracking (motion parallax) work by themselves. It's the combination of the two that creates immersion and allows users to interact naturally with virtual objects.

We did a couple of experiments, and it turns out that head tracking without stereo works slightly better than stereo without head tracking (a good percentage of people have no stereo vision anyways), but both work much, much worse than stereo AND headtracking. I'll explain in another video.

[r3di2watch]

How would a person design a surface that you can walk on infinitely? My best feasible idea is a set of "skates" using casters or on a slick surface, but you would need to hold the person up by the torso, still it would allow complicated strafing and jumping/flying :)

[spelunkerucd]

I have seen a prototype of an adjustable treadmill with a "robot arm" the user gets strapped into at the University of Utah, but I didn't try it myself.

Then there's a project to have a large-scale "hamster wheel" where you walk on the inside of a freely rotating sphere. There's a video of that on youtube, search for "virtusphere".

[parkerault]

As long as you only have one user at a time :)

[goldencricket]

@parkerault you can have more than one user as long as you have different caves to put them in - you just have to simulate the other users in each cave.

[tcresidents]

Search youtube for 'cyberwalk'.

In my opinion, a good solution to a properly immersive 'holodeck' like 3d environment is to use this in conjunction with a CAVE or Sensics HMD, with a wearable haptic suit (google 'Immersion Haptic Workstation'). You'd be able to walk around and touch things with a feedback response (though not 'lean' against them).

[crim3cost]

genial!! cool

[ilmale]

What do you use for tracking the camera?

Infrared/optical marker or magnetic sensor?

[spelunkerucd]

The tracking system is an InterSense IS-900 VE, which is a hybrid between inertial tracking (accelerometers and rate gyros) and ultrasound triangulation for drift control. It is a most excellent system, with low latency and high accuracy.

[d1oftwins]

I was stunned by the accuarcy. Really very exact positioning and very fast. Damn!!!

[jaggedflo]

I would love to see a real player trying quake3 with that :)

Have you tried playing "for real", for example against bots?

[tcresidents]

check out their other video, 'VR Quake 3 Arena Map Viewer'

[JQob]

So when you're in the cave no matter where each person moves they get a different perspective on the objects around them?

Every other cave video I've seen the objects look flat on the walls, but objects in this video pop out of the wall and into the space you are in.

Is something different or are other cave videos just no filmed right?

-JQob

[spelunkerucd]

These videos are shot to replicate the experience of a person using the CAVE as closely as possible. The effect that 3D objects pop into the CAVE space is based on head tracking, the computers draw the objects from the user's point of view. In these videos, we attached a head tracker to the camera to achieve the effect. Most other CAVE videos don't bother, and look "flat."

As there is only one head tracker, only one user in the CAVE gets the perfect view. Everybody else sees distorted images.

[JQob]

Oh ok. I was wondering what everyone was marveling about. You can see people in other videos saying, "It's like I'm actually there!" And I'm thinking, "It's not that good." :-P

-JQob

[cicilovesfeb]

Go work For nintendo or Xbox!! and make a virtual reality mmorpg!

[brandon9271]

nobody works for Xbox.. they work for Microsoft ;P