@BillRoeske: Thanks for posting this, sounds like an interesting project. Seems like maybe it didn't work 100% to your liking, but I think the idea is sound. Its mostly a matter of pairing the right hardware with good software. I feel like we have the proper technology to it right, just maybe no one has cobbled everything together.

Thanks for the encouragement, guys. You've got me at least thinking about it again, which is step one (no pun intended). I'd be a liar if I said that I didn't spend at least part of last night walking around my house like an idiot, trying to think carefully about the feel of it all. I have a very supportive wife.

One thing to consider in the short term may be how to gather some meaningful data about walking. Does a long gap between when a foot is raised and then lowered mean a large stride or a slow sneaking step? People tend to vary their height differently when moving quickly vs. slowly, so perhaps there is some reasonable correlation of time between footfalls and amount of head bob as an indicator of intended distance to travel.

I'll think about it some more. If it goes anywhere, I'll start up a project thread for it once I clear up some of my other obligations.

Oh, and brant: Looks like you've made some really great progress there! Consider me a regular lurker of your thread now.

I just had another light bulb idea for a large park kind of setup. If you had a string that went from one foot to the other that was attached to a spring at one end, and you could get absolute length of the string, combine this with pressure sensors in the shoes and a potentiometer to measure the angle that your foot is pointing and you should be able to work out any movement and direction change very cheaply.

@android78: That could work. The GameTrac used a similar method. It would give you one foots relative position from the other (though you still wouldn't know where the first foot was). Maybe that would be enough to make some assumptions about the desired motion. With the sensors on the foot you would at least know which one was on the ground. So it make be enough. Interesting.

I don't think you need absolute position that you are starting. In a game, all movements are relative to the current position, so the relative movement could be calculated based on half the distance between your feet from the foot that is considered down. So if your left foot is down, then as you move your right foot forward, your position would move half way between your two feet. Then when you put that foot down, the position should be pretty accurate relative to where you were.
As experienced by Brant with the guided walking, I don't think any small errors in the position tracking would be noticeable. The problem is obviously that you would need a huge park, or combine it with GPS (or Brant's tracker) that could guide you when you start to approach the boundary of your area.

@Cyber, I did a quick search and can't find anything about gametrac. Any links to this?

Sorry, it was GameTrak with a "k":
http://cb.nowan.net/blog/2006/09/25/gam ... mpression/

Thanks for the link. It looks similar to what I've in my head, but for hands. I think you're more likely to get the strings tangled with your hands though, especially with the two strings.

That's kind of a nice idea (could be done with a rotary encoder/spring combo for the distance/tension sensor).

My only concern is with the relative rotations of the ankles, you could get weird readings. Assuming you're not on a bidirectional treadmill, whenever you turn your feet the potentiometers will feel it and throw off the whole thing. At that point, it will be difficult to get relative positions. Maybe you could solve it somewhat by having one foot be the "reference foot" that it assumes is always pointing forward.

The "reference foot" is determined by the pressure sensors. The one with most pressure is the one that is considered stationary. It could be a problem if you swivel on your heels though, but I think that's a hard one no matter which solution you use. In the same way that the movement forward is half way between your feet, the angle would be half way between the angles of your feet (relative to your 'down' foot). I'm not sure what problem the bidirectional treadmill solves in this situation. I imagine that having omni skates that keep you in the same position would be ideal for use with this, but if you're going to those lengths, then you can just get position from wheel counters.

This concept occurred to me as well a few weeks ago when I saw Chriky's post about a foot mounted Hydra. Using magnetic trackers on the feet relative to the torso seems like an even simpler method and would adapt extremely well to the types of things I have been working on. I bought a Hydra about 2 days afterwards with the plan of exploring this idea thoroughly as soon as I can get some free time.

Awesome I was hoping someone would take that a bit further, it looked like it had potential, I'm tweaking my HMD and using the Hydra for head and gun tracking (with stationary base) at the moment, so had to dismantle the Hydra-shoes setup.

One cool thing about that kit is it would also give you crouch (feet close to hips) and jump (both feet not touching) controls.

Ha, does anybody on this forum even have any free-time left?

Android's idea definitely seems worth exploration, although obviously, when using it in a park, there will likely be tripping hazards with the cord.

Hi everybody i'm new to this forum and Just wanted to say hi!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WHfUpI66tfo

How about building a manual version of this? From what I've seen so far, this looks like the most natural walk. would it be
possible to track the leg movement and translate it into movement? Maybe with the hydra? Greetings:)

I think the Kinect SDK would be simplest for prototyping but the Hydra would probably work also and be better of quality.

Hi guys! I started reading trough the whole topic, I am really frustrated that there is no "home in your living room" solution yet.

there is some good "big space" options like brantlew's friispace looks totally awsome, but not so practical, You need a whole lot of space and here in sweden we don't have the best weather ^^
and we have the big "hamsterball" also not to practical to have in your living room, and not to talk about the ODT like the one used in BF3 simulator by gadget show. Then we have the wizdish, Good but dont register side to side movment or backing up.

So at page 9 I saw some youtube videos linked by Fredz,

this video was really interesting to me:


It looks horrible but has some good things to. Now imagine a better floor with omni directional ballbearings like the one palmer showed at page 4
http://www.vxb.com/page/bearings/PROD/B%20...%20ts/Kit7764 or similar

and some of you talked about suspending the player in a harness. So combine this contraption with something like THIS!


so now you are suspended so you are just touching the floor and can move freely around (the harness lies on bearings similar to how a bicycle or a motorbikes handlebar works, therefor moves with you) and when you move you are "pushing" forward just a bit and that movement is somehow registered as a analog signal.

It's really hard for me to explain my thoughts due to my limitations in English, But I will try to make some sketches tomorrow! but i hope this gives a basic understanding how I'm imagining this!

Best regards
TilliK

@TilliK: Hey man! I am very much leaning toward something similar. Something involving a pod and a harness and some sort of omni-directional ball-bearings. I'm sure you can combine that stuff into a workable setup. Somehow...

@cybereality, Yeah, We need to get away from tracking the Surface we move on and start tracking the player somehow! That's my belief anyway.

Hello, im new to this forum but really interested in making player motion possible in VR.
Excluding the "walk in place" solutions i think the roller shoes are best alternatives. Im thinking about a solution were you only track the forward/backward motion and handle the rotation with some external tracker like the rift. A plate with small 1-2cm wheels and a simple opto sensor (like in the old wheeled mice) to measure the speed of the movement. To keep the player still you would have a slight concave surface to walk on. With a little bit of wheel friction and just the right angle on the base plate i think it should be possible to walk without to much feeling of "walking on ice". Tho total cost of this could probably be kept to max 300$, probably cheaper. Biggest issue here is to find that perfect concave surface to have as a base. Any thoughts?

@virror: Welcome to the forums. Best of luck with the skate idea. Lots of people have talked about it but nobody has followed through with it yet.

I do think friction is going to be tricky. With a concave surface you are going to have varying levels of force. At the steep part the skates will need more friction to resist rolling than they will at the bottom. So for a continuous walking stride you might need some sort of motorized wheels with continuously variable force to compensate for the shape of the well.

Why not simplify the system by using a low friction surface like the WizDish? Requires no moving parts other than your feet

To be honest, wizdish looks really strange and not like real motion at all : p

Right, but just like any low friction system (roller floors/shoes/etc) you ideally want something that holds your body in place so that you can walk more naturally.

I wonder if applying a high viscosity fluid to the wizdish could work to give some friction. You would probably have to actually make a much larger wizdish that end up much steeper at the edges for this to work and prevent you walking off the edge when you walk fast though.

What, like a cornstarch and water layer? Could get messy.

Look up paramagnetism with neodymium magnets and aluminum. It's a strictly resistive force, and if you have the magnets in your shoes, you can vary resistance by the thickness of the aluminum plate in the wizdish.

I also agree with external motion tracking used in conjunction with some sort of 'fixation device', that way you get two birds with one stone when mapping your gestures etc. into the game from all limbs, reducing processing power required, and also should simplify the setup which fixes you in place as it is separated from the tracking device.

I have been playing with several ideas (only on paper for now) for support of certain limbs, I am especially interested in some sort of electrically stimulated support for the arms, something like a 'smart spring' with modifiable tension to simulate putting your hand on something - obviously this wont give you the texture of the object you are feeling but may give some greater sense of immersion.

I'm not sure if something like this exists already, and I'm still thinking of what material would be a good choice for this. Remember in Batman Begins when his cape becomes firm by sending electricity through it? Something like that.

What about something like this.

Kinect can read walking motions and interpret them pretty well it seems. Rotation, Palmer said that it seems to track pretty well in that regard. But what if you wanted to keep the Kinect in front at all times for better reading.

My thoughts are for legs/feet, have shoes with those fancy rollers on them so that way you can walk in place more comfortably and Kinect would track.

For torso and rotation I’m thinking something WAY simpler than a crazy underneath omni directional treadmill.

If anyone here has been snowboarding before this will make sense. They say to turn your head and shoulders in the direction you want to go and your torso will follow completing the turn. Similar to standing (dangerous) on a spinning office chair. If you turn your head you may not spin the chair too much, but if you turn you’re your shoulders, the chair should rotate underneath you to face that direction simply by your balance shifting.

My thought is to have a platform that would be built on a sort of chair bearing that you would stand on. Then maybe have like bungee cords going from the corners to an anchor belt that you wear. So when you spin your upper torso, it will cause balance shift to rotate platform and cause tension in the bands. The bands contracting would help spin you in the direction you’re going with easier force. You would then mount the Kinect on the platform thing facing you so that it would spin with you and hence always face you.

Let me know if this makes any sense of if I should try drawing a crude diagram/mockup/video.

Would probably need a waist barrier to prevent falling over maybe.

Well hey guys I've been watching this forum for a long time, and finally made an account.... First of @cybereality I literally thought of the same "harness" idea and felt really awesome that I thought of it, but then found this forum and felt like crap lol, but I definitely want to create a "prototype" harness/wizdish device that rotates.... I have the specs and plans ready.... My only problem is "money" I could build the harness... But the trackers is what would cost the most money. I am seriously am looking to build this and would like someone's help in developing software ... Maybe a kick starter could be made after this prototype , and we could start actually moving in virtual reality in our lifetime. Hopefully this could be sold alongside the oculus rift ... I just need someone's help! And hopefully it'll cost about 400-500 dollars to sell. Please reply back as soon as possible if interested in production.

You will probably have more luck if you make your own prototype first. Lots of people here have ideas/plans, and most of them turn out to be flawed once actually built. Taking a product to market takes a lot of money, but making a proof of concept prototype does not have to be more than a few hundred dollars and a lot of manhours. If you can't gamble a few hundred dollars on something you think will work, not many software developers/investors will want to take that chance either.

Well first and foremost thank you @palmertech for taking the time out to reply back. The main reason why money could be a problem is because I am 16 and currently in high school. I am looking into getting a job and a possible internship to help fund it. I plant to build the prototype nevertheless. I would like to build from now till the end of summer, or possibly earlier .. I will document my progress and share it with you guys online.. Any help from anyone would be great . But @palmertech if this project is successful and many are interested in it, could you possibly consider mass production alongside the rift ?

It is hard to say without knowing a lot more factors (Cost, size, safety, patent issues, etc), but I am definitely interested in VR locomotion devices. Your plan sounds good, working with the community is the best thing you can do with something like this. The more information you post, the better people can point out potential problems (And ways to fix them!)

Thanks @palmertech for the info and reply.. I found a partner in my school that seems very interested to work with me and we are both willing to fork up a total of 800 dollars on this project... I will definitely document our prototype, but I'm a bit hesitant on putting up or work online for the whole world, with the idea that someone might steal it .. I am looking to get it patented . But I'm not sure exactly on the cost and time frame of the patent process . Plus I haven't even created it yet. So any tips on how to do it, since you created the rift? And how did you trust people with your invention?

Lots of people are making clones of the 5.6" version of Palmers HMD. I used to think people should patent stuff, but I don't think it is a good idea now.

Hypothetically, if I had patented Palmers HMD before him, it still wouldn't matter. He has more money, so he could get better lawyers, so I would lose.

Watch this video.
http://www.eevblog.com/2010/08/22/eevbl ... to-market/

I always gave away pretty much all of the information on all of my HMDs, there was never any secret. If you really think your design is something that nobody else could replicate and that you can better on your own than the community as a whole, by all means, get a patent. It will take years to be granted, cost thousands of dollars, and won't really protect you from other companies stealing your design.

More likely, though, your design is something that many "real" companies could do better, and the best way to get your product anywhere is to stick with it, listen to community suggestions, make constant improvements, and beat slower moving/risk averse companies to market. In the end, though, you need to ask yourself what you really want: Do you want a VR omnidirectional treadmill, or do you want to get rich off of one? Had a large company copied my original designs and brought a high FOV HMD to market, I would have been thrilled! I made the Rift because nobody else would, and I think the same is likely true for you.

Wow that was a wonderful video @bobv5 and thanks @palmertech this has been something that I always wanted to do , especially with finding out the rift was being created... Now I have no worry about documenting my progress in this forum. I have so many ideas ready to show you guys... I'll make a thread soon, so stay updated ... I still need to learn a lot about programming so some tips on that would be great. my friend and I have taken some college courses while in highschool on computer science /programming . We just need some guidance on how "tracking" would be written/programmed in a basic software. But I guess I'll wait till I start the actual thread. I still have to draw out the "exact " dimensions of the platform. I Have to find a welder soon. Thanks again for the support and motivation .. I just hope there are hardcore gamers/developers out there that would actually use these devices.