Totally immerse yourself in 3D Cyberworlds with the Virtual Cocoon.

Researchers have just presented a concept for immersive virtual reality (VR) with the helmet ‘Virtual Cocoon’. With this futuristic device all five senses can be addressed in virtual worlds.

Do we actually need to travel to be somewhere to experience it fully? Usually we just rely on our senses to interact with the world around us. The ‘virtual cocoon’ will allow people to interact naturally with the world around us without actually travelling or being put in a particular real situation (which could potentially be dangerous).

The virtual cocoon will stimulate all five senses and hence provide a rich sensory ‘real virtuality’ experience. Special attention will be paid to the degree of naturalness perceived by the user in the virtual world

How will virtual cocoons change the world?
The virtual cocoon will revolutionise the way in which we do business by providing low-cost, high confidence, high quality multi-sensory knowledge directly to our current location.

It will significantly change, for example, purchasing via the internet because you could smell the flowers, feel the fabric of a dress, try out a sofa for comfort, examine products in any desired lighting condition and so on all before you buy them - and with the confidence that the purchasing experience is the same as if you were there in the shop examining the product using all your appropriate senses.

What can you do with virtual cocoons?
With a virtual cocoon, you could:

• Design sensory aesthetics and comfort levels for new buildings or garden parks.
• Select your desired listening position at a concert in the Albert Hall.
• Visit an African game park as a family, even if some members are distributed around the world.
• Examine a patient in a remote location from a local GP’s consulting room.
• Mock up digitally organisational workflow incorporating environmental as well as locational attributes.
• Explore the past: Visit a prehistoric cave art as it was being painted.
• E-Learning: Be trained as a pilot to land in ‘brown out’ conditions in the desert.
• Gain experience as a driver in rare, but highly dangerous conditions.
• Visit ancient Rome during History or Latin lessons.
• Have virtual sex.

Or how about linking a virtual cocoon to Google Earth? This would enable users to investigate the ambiance of a restaurant on the other side of the world when they’re planning a trip. And of course it will be used for visits to various 3D virtual worlds to give cyber-travellers a super-realistic immersive experience.

How can virtual cocoons become succesful?
What will people make of virtual cocoons and how will they change tomorrow’s society? For the virtual cocoon to achieve economic success and widespread adoption it will need to be highly portable, low-cost and easy to interface with - something one can keep in one’s pocket ideally.

Towardsrealvirtuality.com - virtual cocoon 3d cyberspace

The software Exit Reality creates a 3D version of every standard website.

Exitreality.com

Web 1.0 was Information - Web 2.0 is Interaction - Web 3.0 will be Immersion in the 3D Internet

These gadgets and machines will make total immersion in the rapidly growing 3D Internet Cyberspace possible - the Matrix is coming closer!

MyVu’s Video Cyberdisplay goggles. You can connect this video player to your iPhone or iPod. Soon we’ll be able to connect it to the net, and surf 3D websites with it. Even Paris Hilton tried this personal media viewer by Myvu! Myvu.com

 

Google’s 3D interactive internet visor ‘Google Goggles’

Apparently Google is preparing a new revolutionary product called Google Goggles, an interactive visor which will display Internet content in three dimensions.

Insiders already call this gadget  “the Googgles”. Anybody who puts on this device will be immersed in a three dimensional ’stereo-vision’ virtual reality called 3dLife.

3dLife is a pun referring to the three dimensional nature of the interface, but also a reference to the increasingly popular Second Life virtual reality.

The Google Goggles may also function as a phone, but that is not their main purpose. The main purpose is to give users a three dimensional interface with the Internet.

Google builds this device with Israel-based Mirage Innovations. They call their gadget-technology LightVu Personal Viewer. Mirage Innovations try to specifically design their LightVu eyewear to eliminate the effects of cyberstress (nausea, dizziness, disorientation).

Mirageinnovations.com
Pandia.com - google googgles

…However, theses glasses might also soon be a thing of the past due to these innovative new screens:

Philips‘ 3D TV (WOW vx). Philips has added a new immersive experience with the WOWvx technology. With the Philips 3D WOW displays you can experience 3D television without the use of those special glasses that one normally has to wear. The 3D display is suitable for simultaneous use by a number of viewers thanks to its large viewing zone. Dimensionalstudios.com - philips wowvx

 

Holografika’s HoloVizio 3D Screen. HoloVizio, while first looking like just another 3D screen, completely changes the approach to three-dimensional displays using voxels instead of pixels. Each voxel can project multiple light beams of different intensity and colors and it does so in several directions, simultaneously. Anyone standing around the monitor will actually see an object from a different perspective, with no need for goggles or other stereoscopic tricks. The HoloVizio sets a standard for 3D visualisation as viewers can see a 3D image on the screen, quite similarly as they would see an object in reality. Holografika.com

 

Yet these screens are obviously still not really portraying a realistic three dimensional world. They’re just simulating three dimensions on simple 2D screens. The Visionstation goes a step further and allows a more ‘ inclusive’ 3D view:

Elumens‘ fully immersive 160° display Visionstation.

The VisionStation by Elumens is a portable and low-cost 3D immersive viewing system with a wide range of real-world applications. It can be used with applications such as: Simulation and training, oil and gas exploration, product presentation and entertainment applications.

Standard flat-screen applications can display a field of view of no more than 60°. The Elumens VisionStation however allows for a fully immersive display of 160°. The VisionStation’s ultra-wide field of view creates an amazing sense of space and depth, without need for goggles or glasses. The large size of the VisionStation screen (1.5 meters) also helps promote an excellent sense of immersive 3D.

Inition.com - elumens visionstation

A hologram-like solution comes from Actuality Systems with their Perspecta 3D display:

Actuality Systems‘ Perspecta Spatial 3-D System. Perspecta is a hologram-like fisheye three-dimensional display that allows users to view moving objects from any angle with the unaided eye, simply by walking around them as you would if you were looking at real 3D objects. Users experience an all-encompassing 360 degree view and simultaneous multi view collaboration without goggles or any assistive device. Perspecta consists of a rotating round white polymer screen resting on a box containing software, hardware, and an optical system. Slices of successive 2D images generate moving images that seemingly float inside a crystal ball-like structure. As they are rapidly projected one after another onto the screen, they create the illusion of a real 3D image. Actuality Systems develops hardware/software-based visualization products for medical imaging, the earth sciences (oil/gas), and consumer electronics. Actuality-medical.com - perspecta spatial 3d

University of Tokyo’s TWISTER 360-degree rotating 3D display.

TWISTER (Telexistence Wide-angle Immersive STEReoscope) is an immersive full-color autostereoscopic display, designed for a face-to-face telecommunication system called ‘mutual telexistence’, where people in distant locations can communicate as if they were in the same virtual three dimensional space.

Researchers from the University of Tokyo, led by Susumu Tachi, have developed a unique display that allows viewers to be immersed in a 3D video environment.

Professor Tachi has spent years researching and developing a cylindrical display with over 50,000 LEDs positioned in columns. The display rotates around your head at 1.6 revolutions per second, the LEDs show a different image to each of your eyes, creating the illusion of a 3D image.

At the moment, all you can watch in TWISTER are pre-recorded 3D video from a source such as a computer, but the researchers are currently developing 3D videophone capabilities to the system by mounting a camera system that can capture 3D images of the person inside TWISTER.

Tachilab.org - twister 3d display

 

3DConnexion’s Space Navigator mouse

A 3D mouse lets you move effortlessly in all dimensions. Move the 3D mouse controller cap to zoom, pan and rotate simultaneously. The 3D mouse is a virtual extension of your body - and the ideal way to navigate virtual worlds like Second Life.

The Space Navigator is designed for precise control over 3D objects in virtual worlds. Move, fly and build effortlessly without having to think about keyboard commands, which makes the experience more lifelike. Controlling your avatar with this 3D mouse is fluid and effortless. Walk or fly spontaneously, with ease. In flycam mode you just move the cap in all directions to fly over the landscape and through the virtual world.

3dconnexion.com - 3d mouse space navigator

Vlad Bjornson’s movie impressively demonstrates how the Space Navigator mouse improves the user-experience in cyberspace. Join him for a flight around the virtual Africa cyberworld in Second Life.

 

University of California’s StarCAVE Virtual World

The StarCAVE at the University of California, San Diego is a virtual-reality environment which allows groups of scientists to explore worlds as big as the cosmos and as small as nanoparticles.

This 360-degree VR room offers a fully immersive 3-D experience:
Users of this virtual reality can interact with the visuals on the 360-degree display by pointing a “wand” which results in flying through the 3-D images and zoom in or out. The exact position of the wand and the user is determined by a multi-camera wireless tracking system.

Internet3d.org - starcave 3d  virtual reality

 

The problem of walking.

Though Virtual Reality is moving quickly towards realism on many fronts, one of the major problems in creating realistic immersion is that of walking.
If people walk around with a VR headset on, they might bump into something. Researchers are questing for a suitable device which offers proprioceptive feedback for virtual reality walking.

Scientists at the University of Tsukuba in Japan are developing such solutions. Their Stringwalker uses eight strings actuated by motor-pulley mechanisms mounted on a turntable. VirtusSpere Inc. from Redmond USA uses a different approach:

VirtuSphere Inc.’s Full Body Immersion Virtual Reality Virtusphere.

The Virtusphere allows lifelike movements in cyberspace by letting the user walk ‘inside’ computer generated virtual space. The user could carry out "virtual explorations" of museums or a new city, or conduct police or military training in a much more realistic and immersive manner than that which has been possible until now.

This unique simulation platform allows six degrees of freedom.
One can walk, crawl and run over virtually unlimited distances in all directions. Virtusphere can be compatible with all computer based simulations.

The user enters the sphere with a head mounted display, which permits virtual vision in any direction. As the user moves, the sensors under the sphere transmit information about the users speed and direction to the computer. The user looks at the head mounted display and sees a virtual three dimensional space which is generated by the computer in response to his-or-her movements. The user can interact with objects in virtual space with the help of a special manipulator.

Virtusphere.net 

(www.internet3d.org)