The Exciting Prospect Of Virtual Reality Computer Games
The Exciting Prospect Of Virtual Reality Computer Games
You may have come across the phrase either in gaming forums of in science fiction, but exactly what is meant by virtual reality, what is it, and does it present us with any possible benefits or advantages in the future?
This phrase can be answered by either simply looking at the technology currently used, and understanding the basics of how it works, and what it tries to achieve. The more complex way of looking at this concept is by firstly asking what we understand by the word reality, before we try understanding the idea of an alternate, virtual version of reality.
Basically, if we understand the idea of reality to be the sum of all of the sensory inputs our brain receives, virtual reality is the use of technology to replace as many of those sensory inputs as possible with computer generated ones, to fool the brain into believing in a world which is false, and which only exists within the brain of the computer.
The most common form of virtual reality is one where the user wears a visor which wraps entirely round their normal field of vision. The computer then projects or displays a visual three dimensional world onto the inside f this visor, entirely replacing what the user would normally see with a computer generated view. The clever part of this is that the visor has a number of motion sensors built in to it, so that if the user turns their head, tilts their head, or moves their body entirely, the display inside the projector will move to match the user’s movement, creating the illusion of the user actually moving around within this three dimensional world of the computer’s.
Taking this idea further, the world may contain a number of objects, such as furniture, doors, objects that can be picked up and examined. By wearing special gloves which have a whole range of sensors built in to them, the computer can track the position, movement and actions of the user’s hands, and work out whether they would be touching anything, and if so, how the objects would react. Would they be being picked up, turned, knocked over and so forth?
By adding audio as well, the user can be very immersed within this world, and with advancing technologies making greater and more realistic computer generated scenes, the user can very easily start to believe in this virtual world, or reality.
One way in which this technology is an exciting area for development is within computer and video games, and already we are starting to see early developments of this with basic visors, and hand controls which are motion sensitive. Eventually we may well all find ourselves entering an alternative reality in which to play our games, which would make chase scenes, fights and cliff top adventures even more breath taking!
Designing the Virtual Classroom: The Advent of Tele-Immersion
Designing the Virtual Classroom: The Advent of Tele-Immersion
From 1996 to 2001, ANS led and funded the National Tele-Immersion Initiative to connect users at a distance and allow them to play in the same virtual world. Our dream was to create the illusion that people in different places were present in the same room and then let them use any computer backgrounds and simulations they desired to create the reality they chose.
As builders of the Internet, we saw the potential for this new technology to change the way we learn. Tele-immersion is a technology that does exactly what its name implies: It engages all the senses and totally immerses us in our subject matter. And it can be used to create a variety of scenarios and learning environments. The beauty of tele-immersion is that it involves the whole body and mind in the learning process. Chemistry no longer has to be about memorizing tables and abstract properties. Instead, students can walk into a telecubicle and interact with an atomic structure that’s projected in three-dimension. Using a robotic glove, they can actually feel the forces that hold molecules together.
Educators believe that tele-immersion will eventually do away with textbooks and allow kids to step inside a problem and see it from the inside out, making learning more visceral and intuitive. It will also engage a greater portion of the brain-not just the area responsible for logic and linear thought but also the areas that deal with spatial relationships and visual and kinesthetic memory.
Back in the 1996, however, our goal was to create the first national demonstration of the new technology and show how it might enhance creativity and collaboration. As the chief architects and engineering group for Internet2, ANS had access to very high bandwidth, and we were able to use that bandwidth for our experiments. Tele-immersion is the most is the most challenging application of all because it pushes both the speed and the latency (the delay between transmission and reception) of a network to the outer limits.
As the developers of this technology, we envisioned a brave new world where surgeons would guide their colleagues, and even their robots, through complex operations from a distance. Architects would make major changes in building design without having to go on-site or coordinate five sets of blueprints. Archaeologists would be able to “sit in” on remote digs from the comfort of their living rooms. NASA engineers would be able to address operating problems on a space shuttle from the safety of mission headquarters. This technology would also revolutionize distance education. Our best teachers would reach a larder audience, making eye contact with their viewers. One day telecubicles would be built large enough to accommodate music and theater audiences, because this new technology is capable of conveying all the nuances of a live performance.
In 2001, the Los Angeles Times predicted that tele-immersion would lead to a new wave of innovation. “The telecubicle offers a glimpse of the Internet of the future-one that will be liberated from computer monitors and infused with the essential sense of sight, sound, and touch. The goal is to create digital worlds where computer-generated avatars will become realistic stand ins for actual people, surround-sound audio will emulate real-life noises, and force-feedback technology will reveal the shape and texture of physical objects across a computer network.”
ANS spent roughly million to get these new technologies off the ground. And over the past eight years, NSF has invested more that million in tele-immersion, working with the University of Southern California (USC) to make this dream into a reality. At present, USC investigators are studying
Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the WiiRemote
Using the infrared camera in the Wii remote and a head mounted sensor bar (two IR LEDs), you can accurately track the location of your head and render view dependent images on the screen. This effectively transforms your display into a portal to a virtual environment. The display properly reacts to head and body movement as if it were a real window creating a realistic illusion of depth and space. By Johnny Chung Lee, Carnegie Mellon University. For more information and software visit johnnylee.net
Leah D’Emilio learns about a whole new approach to visual effects in film. Dr. Paul Debevec, innovator of HDR photography and creator of Photogrammetry used in “The Matrix,” takes us through USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies
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