Oculus Rift is a Virtual Reality system and like many before it, also requires wearable technology to function. The essence of any VR is to take an input from the movement of the VR gear wearer, translate that into information a computer can process and display the changes to the wearers eyes through a pair of glasses on a head mounted display. The scene would be as the name suggests, a virtual world or virtual reality that is perceived by the user to be interacting with them. Turning ones head for instant would cause the scene observed by the user to change in the way the user expects in an actual world.
The problem with previous versions has been the cost, and the weight of the VR gear in addition to the size of the gear. There are also problems to over come such as disorientation which can occur. In the real world human perception isn't just visual, it is also the sound, touch, smell, even taste so for a complete real world experience in a virtual world, these are some of the hardest things to overcome. Does Oculus Rift solve these? Not quite, only the ones that matter, for now.
Oculus VR started through a kick-starter campaign raising over 2.4 million in funding and through gaining support from video game companies[1]. Peter Luckey, the founder of Oculus VR, developed the idea of a head mounted gear that was better than anything on the market and inexpensive for gamers(Wikipedia[2]) during his time as moderator of 'Meant to be seen' forums but has he achieved this? Well we don't know yet but the developers kit 1 was sold for $300USD each in 2012 and was quite successful[2]. Developer kit 2 is not scheduled until July 2014 and I am ready to lay some cash down for it provided it is affordable for me at that time. Considering the cost and success of DK1, I am ready to believe that Peter Luckey has succeeded in his goal. The upside of this technology if it gets more popular, it can only get cheaper, or at the very least remain the same cost but be several magnitudes better than anything we have ever seen before.
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| Image sourced from: http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/announcing-the-oculus-rift-development-kit-2-dk2/ |
The problem of bulky head gear still remains where you still have a rather large strap on head gear so while the cost factor may have been resolved, the physical size of the headgear still seems like it needs work. If we played down everything else, then looking at the Oculus DK2 images on the Oculus VR website it does not look like you will be able to see anything in the real world. This works wonders for immersion, but you also do not want to hit your head against something either, think of the damage it could do.....to the head gear. But wait, does it need that in the first place? If we distract ourselves momentarily to another technology, the Google glasses, it seems it is possible to produce a display system that can process things in a very light package so is something like this in the horizon from Oculus rift? Their DK2 uses a camera to track infra-red dots on the headgear so there are possibilities. I feel I am leaping too far ahead here but as with early pixelated games through to what we see today, this would be a fairly reasonable assumption. So has Oculus solved the immersion factor?, almost!
Reality involves the other senses as well such as touch, taste, smell but we can ignore the sixth sense for now -games are still likely to follow a linear plot. Theaters have experimented with smell in the past with mixing chemicals to reproduce the scent of something in the screen so that could be solved. All that remains is the touch and taste and I am not sure how that will be solved, or even if it should. So complete realism is likely far away so where does this put Oculus Rift?
Oculus Rift has achieved a milestone in VR technology by reducing the cost factor and retaining the immersion and at the same time having modern games capable of using this technology rather than a basic pixelated demo of the past, you can see the link to them in reference [3]. While it does not solve all the techniques for complete immersion, expecting it so would be nit picking it has done the best and it is looking great. Check out the Oculus VR website for more on their technology as well as the very nicely written Wikipedia article on it.
References:
[1]http://www.oculusvr.com/company/
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oculus_Rift
[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oculus_Rift#Adoption
Image source: http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/announcing-the-oculus-rift-development-kit-2-dk2/
I've heard about Occulus Rift - didn't facebook buy it. It looks pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteYes facebook has bought it and John Carmack, the creator of the first 3D game engine and of 3D games like Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake; is now the chief technicial officer of Oculus VR.
DeleteIt is going to be really exciting what Oculus VR will churn out.