And
some others offered next term
As one of the
primary goals of virtual reality is to immerse you in a
simulated world, and of augmented reality to combine the real
world with a virtual world. the various technologies make
extensive use of motion tracking, interactive graphics, and
sound. This can lead to varying degrees of simulator sickness
including nausea, fatigue, headache, eyestrain, vertigo, and
dizziness with different devices and different computer
generated or enhanced environments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulator_sickness
HTC has a
pretty nice set of safety guidelines for the use of the
VIVE that are generally applicable:
http://www.adventureswithvr.com/safety-info-htc-vive/
and of course
there are lots of videos on YouTube of people hurting
themselves, or others, or the technology, or their surroundings
while in VR. Note that when people hurt themselves and others
they often swear so NSFW language ahead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=0KcllPEe8y8
and lots of
videos of people having similar AR issues walking into things
while playing Pokemon Go (or in some cases perhaps just looking
at their phones too much) so please be aware of your
surroundings in the real world while experiencing virtual ones.
As the title
of the class suggests, we will be doing a lot of work with these
technologies. The first project will be an augmented reality
application for smartphones and the second and third projects
will use the Oculus Quest, of which we have several in the lab,
which requires spending time in VR to create these worlds, so be
sure that you are comfortable with doing this.
Most people
are fine with VR/AR, and people do tend to feel less simulator
sickness with repeated usage, but some people have serious
issues, just as some people get very car sick, so I want to be
sure right from the first classes that everyone knows what they
are getting into.
You really need to experience Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality to understand why they are different than other interactive computer programs, so we will spend the first two class periods running various applications to give everyone a better idea what the class will be about. We will be breaking the class into groups and running various Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality demos.
As we are not
sure what limitations there might be this term, I have also made
some videos of me running various AR and VR apps, and you can
download some of the applications to run on your smartphone.
Retro technology - stereo imagery without head tracking or interaction:
Lower cost technology ( < $1,000):
Higher cost technology:
Much higher cost technology:
( a lot more than $ 5,000)
A nice
starting point to get a sense of larger scale VR installations
like CAVE2 here in EVL is to look at this video from 2017 - https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=L4gBCtfqZtU
Everyone should try and
experience all of the different technologies this week, though
we will be doing more demos throughout the term, so this won't
be your only opportunity.
Please check the Project 1 tab under assignments for details. We will talk about this more in class in week 2.
Please check the Homework tab under assignments each week as there will generally be an assignment each week, including this one.
Tools we are going to use in the class
last revision
8/20/2022