Hi All,
Time to stop lurking and start contributing
Like a lot of people on these boards, I've been inspired by the Rift to start working on a little project. I call mine "openloop".
Openloop's a low cost (currently under $60 for print and parts), small form-factor VR head-mount that relies on tech I already had (iphone5) to produce a decent VR experience. I started building openloop out of curiosity, to see it could be done. Turns out, it can!
I'm lucky enough to have a Rift devkit, but I know a lot of people aren't and are either (1) Waiting in the queue, (2) Not convinced enough to part with $300 yet or (3) waiting for the consumer version and it's killing them, so I've decided to share.
This is openloop version1 (hopefully inline images work!):
This first version is 2 pieces. The black section is (obviously) a necessity, but the front plate is purely cosmetic and the device works fine without it.
It has a few minor issues, some from the resolution of the 3D print, some from me just not measuring properly (measure twice, order 3D print once!) which I'm currently addressing for the next iteration and also looking at either working out a universal solution or coming up with adjusted versions for the major cell phone footprints (being badgered by someone for an HTC One M7 version!)
So, it works and my intended next step (once I've tweaked out the bugs) is to share it. I'm using shapeways to print and anyone who wants to try it out should be able to order their own prints once I've shared it, in whatever material they choose to print it in (so if you really want a purple back section, with gold front plate, go for it. It's your money and I won't question your taste
)As far as software goes, I've built some unity prefabs for the camera setup and if there's anybody would like to give this a go, I'll tidy up the code, make it a bit more adaptive to differing screen resolutions and put in bluetooth controller support (not running ios7 yet, so can't test, but that's not an issue for the android fans) - it needs unity pro, unfortunately. I don't have a way around that unless a drop the lens distortion - but now I've typed that, I'll give it a go and see how much it alters the experience.
Either way, I'm planning on sharing:
1) Access to models for printing from shapeways
2) download of the unity prefabs to build your own VR experiences
3) Links to the lenses used, head strap and foam padding
4) Instructions on how to assemble (really not hard)
Again - currently it costs less than $60 for the whole thing completed - but as a warning, V2 uses more plastic on the 3D print, so might be a little bit more, shapeways charge by volume!
thanks for being an inspiring group of people!