This is pissing me off. What do I need to do this myself?

[robert135]

I am so tired of seeing this technology screwed up by developers and corporations for over 20 years that I would like to know.

What do I need to know to implement this myself and just cut out the middle man BS?

I have some knowledge of Cad, I can program(BSCS), but have limited knowledge of electrical engineering which I am sure I will need to learn.

What else?

[bobv5]

Depends what you want to do.

Palmertech HMD should be better than anything else available, but I think he is only making a limited amount. Decent trackers can be bought off the shelf, then its just a case of the software to run on it.

[cybereality]

Sounds like you have the motivation and some experience, but what are you trying to do?

[Tone]

I am so tired of seeing this technology screwed up by developers and corporations for over 20 years that I would like to know.
What do I need to know to implement this myself and just cut out the middle man BS?
I have some knowledge of Cad, I can program(BSCS), but have limited knowledge of electrical engineering which I am sure I will need to learn.
What else?

I'm not sure I agree with your characterization of the technology being "screwed up" by developers and corps., but I applaud your willingness to prove me wrong! Aside from a few niche markets, it is very, very difficult to make money in VR as the past 25 years demonstrate. A lot of bright (and not-so-bright) folks have taken a run at it. However, if your goal doesn't include financial gain, and you're willing to sink some cash into your projects, there's still a lot of room for innovation.

Suggestions for your bucket list: Optics, EE, display technologies, ergonomics, human factors, physics, physiology/anatomy/neurology, mechanical engineering, materials engineering, computer graphics software and hardware, storytelling and visual arts... probably more that others will suggest.

Check out what Palmer's been doing for a number of years. Lots of great posts here. He shares some excellent technology, and more important, he talks about his own learning curve.

[brantlew]

VR is such a fun hobby because it's largely ignored and untapped so even the average individual can do meaningful work in it. Industry ignores it because there is no financial gain. Academia seems to ignore it, maybe because they feel like it has already been "solved" in theory and just remains an engineering problem. So there just isn't much stuff going on outside of some military contracts and some fringe gaming. If you spend 2 or 3 months digging into it, you can easily find multiple areas where individual hobbyists can do cutting edge work and exploration.

[cybereality]

@brantlew: Yeah, totally true. As a single hobbyist, its not like you could make the next Call of Duty game, which takes 100+ people years to make. But as a single developer you could conceivably come up with new and novel VR tech demos and pave a road for the future of virtual experiences. Exciting times for sure.

[brantlew]

A telling example - when I first started looking into redirected walking I assumed that I would find a bunch of case studies with prototype systems. But the few studies that are published either

a) Extrapolate their findings based on small scale tests and constrained scenarios. For example they might set up a test to determine the limits of perceptible curvature under different settings, but they do so in a small room and never scale it up to full size.

or b) Base their findings on computer simulations of a person walking. So the entire exercise is just academic. They don't make anything.

I was just shocked that even though the topic has been studied, nobody (outside military) it seems has actually built one of these things - WTF! It's not like it's massively difficult or expensive, so I decided to build my own and as far as I know I now have one of the very few full scale redirected walking systems in existence.

I mean look at Palmer and the Rift. I'm sure a lot of guys knew in principle how to build that type of rig. He was just motivated enough to actually put the thing together.

Look at cyber and Emerson - implementing head roll into a 3D game injection driver. And all the guys that are mod'ing equipment into sensible VR rigs.

There are just so many untapped areas to get into with this stuff.

[profvr]

VR is such a fun hobby because it's largely ignored and untapped so even the average individual can do meaningful work in it. Industry ignores it because there is no financial gain. Academia seems to ignore it, maybe because they feel like it has already been "solved" in theory and just remains an engineering problem. So there just isn't much stuff going on outside of some military contracts and some fringe gaming. If you spend 2 or 3 months digging into it, you can easily find multiple areas where individual hobbyists can do cutting edge work and exploration.

Academia and industry don't ignore virtual reality: there is a thriving, if only moderately-sized, industry and a few academic conferences (IEEE VR, ACM VRST, Euro-VR) which draw a spectrum of people from engineers through to social scientists. If you wanted to buy a HMD system for, e.g., training there are several companies that could build it for you, and there is almost certainly a university near you with a VR facility. Whilst there was definitely a dip mid-late 1990s, I would contend the field has had a resurgence since the mid-2000s because of the improvement in displays, consumer graphics chips, better understanding of what makes "VR" worked as a user-experience (proprioception, immersion, plausibility), etc. A lot of research has moved over to CAVE-like displays in the late 1990s, simply because they were more immersive, and easier to demonstrate. HMDs are making a come-back because of the likes of NVis being good field of view and reliable: I've helped a few people set up labs to use HMDs and, for example, they are getting good use in psychology and neuroscience to understand human visual system, navigation behaviour, etc.

Having said that, I totally agree its a good hobbyist area as well: build a HMD, a better tracker, a better one-handed joystick, a motion-sensing platforn, a better tactile input glove, a haptic feedback jacket, a spatialised audio system, a smell output device, etc. There is a long tradition of hobbyist influence on the field, see e.g. The Virtual Reality Homebrewers Handbook from the last "spike" in VR interest.

[Chriky]

The Handbook sounds simultaneously awesome and awful; it is obviously totally out of date now. Perhaps we should try and compile a modern edition, as a wiki perhaps?

One simple thing that would really help newcomers is a decent glossary.

[cybereality]

Well Amazon had the book for 0.57 cents used, so how could I not buy it! I also picked up Garage VR a little while ago based on a recommendation from PalmerTech ( http://www.amazon.com/Garage-Virtual-Re ... 0672302705 ). Its also rather dated, but still interesting to remember the kind of stuff we had back then. Would be cool to make an updated book or FAQ based on the stuff going on in this forum. However, even now, I feel like no one really has a completely working VR setup. We are all kind of working on different cogs of a machine but nothing is assembled yet. So I don't think we could really write a book at this point in time. But maybe a year down the road things will be further along.

[PalmerTech]

Suggestions for your bucket list: Optics, EE, display technologies, ergonomics, human factors, physics, physiology/anatomy/neurology, mechanical engineering, materials engineering, computer graphics software and hardware, storytelling and visual arts... probably more that others will suggest.

I think that this wraps up one of the biggest boundaries to VR: It is a technology that requires the development and integration of so many different fields, many of them expensive/high risk with low potential payoff. Sound is another big part of the equation I would add.

Luckily, technology has pushed forward independently of VR, and more and more of the puzzle pieces are fitting together. I think a community handbook/wiki would be great, there is a lot of great info scattered across this forum that is a bit tough to find. It could be here on MTBS3D, it could be part of my site, or it could be an external site; I would just start it myself, but I want to be wary of attaching a community project to a commercial venture, which is what my HMD kit is turning into, as as homebrew focused as it is.

[lnrrgb]

and speaking of your HMD project..... you've been fairly quiet in here lately. I know your free time must be quite limited, but a few "on topic" words would do wonders for all of us in here (or at least for me). Sorry if it seems like thread hi-jacking, but it seems like I only look for posts from 2-3 key guys in here lately, and when they post, I gotta go where they flow. So now, what was the OP trying to do? Did we ever get a specific answer? No..... I don't think we did.... is he still pissed off?? There now, back on topic...his topic anyway.

[suckmysound]

even i feel a lot needs to be done for VR.
Too bad companies are scared of ppl's reaction to such releases.
we can have headphones , plasma/LED TVs manufactured in huge vol. but when it comes to personal VR and cinema experience there is nothing just GREAT concepts on paper [waveguide tech etc] mostly.

Sony was skeptical releasing HMZ so was SMD - remember the 'stealth mode' that SMD described.
Vuzix and others are NOT that important. - they only make cheap products and make a quick buck if possible.
the fact is most of the development is on paper - getting patents instead of making real products. Why?
Seems like making a quality HMD is more like designing AI project.

Only Emagin has been greatly successful to say the least - even they do not seem inclined at all to take it next level.
let's see what SMD does so in near furure.
But i must add that the HMD scene is very depressing to say the least.
HMD looks like tiny LCD image zooming using lenses but seems more complicated than robotics/AI - it encompasses so many knowledge areas which baffles me .

none the less hope is on that at least st1080 will deliver in future.

[bobv5]

I don't know about mainstream VR, but if Palmer can churn Rifts out in big enough numbers us VR dorks have evrything we need.

Audio was mentioned. Game developers seem to be paying slightly more attention recenty, with half decent but over priced headphones being a poplular thing thing to buy at the moment I hope they will continue to improve the audio rendering of games.