Virtual Reality Headsets

Hey I just tried SL with some old 3D glasses and it was kind of neat. Things kind of jumed out at me. Of course it did make my head feel woozy. But it was a neat site.

While the idea is cool, I would never use one for fear of a friend walking in while I am.

"Dude, what the fuck is that on your head?"

Hmmm... seems like we are slowly getting closer to consumer HMD's.

http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20050623_150720.html

http://blog.rebang.com/index.php?p=261

haven't seen costs.

Not to be too much of a pessimist, but you guys saw the resolution for that Trimersion HMD, right? 320x240? As in, less than a PalmOS device? Call me crazy, but until we have AT LEAST 1024x768, I can't see how it would be immersive at all. I've used similar low-res consumer HMDs, and all they left me with was an urge to count pixels...

Catherine ruined CHRISTMAS!

what makes that important imo isn't the resolution, it's that someone is trying to enter the market at a pricepoint that might attract regular consumers. this might be a little like the early days of consumer 3D videocards. big issue is the pricetag. if they can keep it low enough that people get into it, then i'm looking for the good stuff to follow.

ummmmmmmmm

http://www.inition.co.uk/inition/products_hmds.htm here's some

me want.

I'd like a good vr headset and a nice 3D input tool, like the one at Microscribe

The best (most features for most reasonable price) HMD you'll find right now is the eMagin Z800. I own one. For $999, it has 800x600 resolution, OLED screens with stereo 3D, integrated headtracking (this feature alone can run you an extra $900 on other HMD's), integrated headphones and microphone.

It's not perfect. The optics are not stellar, although the eyepieces are very adjustable. The eyepieces can be moved left and right, up and down and towards / away from your face. I really shouldnt complain about the resolution. 800x600 is great compared to other HMD's. Still, 1024x768 would be much preferred. eMagin has higher resolution OLED screens, I suspect they use lower res to keep the cost down on the Z800. I'm looking forward to the Z1024, though.

The unit doesnt weigh much, but lighter would always be better. The majority of the weight is in the front (the screens) right over your nose. It can feel heavy after extended use. The literature recommends that the unit not be allowed to "rest on your nose" but the unit WILL end up resting on yer nose afte extended use and the unit has NO padding on the nose piece. Just hard plastic. Would it have killed em to stick a piece of foam on the nose piece?

The unit is not as "immersive" as I would like. Its more like watching a screen floating in front of your face. The unit doesnt enclose your head. I wish it did.

So, it's a fun toy for under $1000. It's a start, but I look forward to improvement. What i'm afraid of is that eMagin wont sell enough of em to continue the line.

i have some i-glasses, and verious other ones over the years, even 800x600 a inch from your eye does nothing but give headache, the optics are usually crap and most head tracking units have the axis at perfect 90 degree angles, which results in neckace becuase you have to keep your head up perfect just to look around normal, even after alittle bit of time your soon constantly looking at the floor becuase of the 1lb offcenter weight on your head. (on my i-glasses 1 degree in RL = abbout 40 degrees in game)

my I-glasses are an older model 240x320, you cant even wach a NSTC video on the things with out migrane city

Generally they are hard to see, hard to use,and generally quite irritating to wear more than the 15 min ohh ahh, gee whiz factor.

Dont piss your money away on them, get a giant LCD screen instead you will like it more

I would like to see them do something about the *input* to SL, more than the output.

Powergloves, head-trackers, eye-trackers, ...

most traditional VR hardware uses mouse controls for head tracking, since they usually come with a First person shooter this is ok, but there are ways to map other controls to it (just usually not with the provided software)

Ah-HA the nintendo power glove, the only peice of vr equipment, thats cheap and works right.
if you have a funcoland (or other used game retailer) you can get these buggers for 10us$ if your abit of a wire head and know how to use a soldering iron they plug right into your PC's paralell port (i would imagine theres a usb hack by now) google it sometime. its a great CHEAP weekend VR project.

Ive tried mine with SL, using a mouse driver, not exactly the lawnmower man but its neato to point at an object and wiggle a finger to interact with it.

Just orderred three sets of Z800s (plus some gps stuff and other sensors) cos they have head tracking to some degree. We are looking at implementing virtual interfaces to real geography; you move in RL, you move in SL. Will probably take ages to get the kit and longer to write it up, but will post to the forums, once we get results.

A pair of glasses with a virtual retinal display, head-tracker and eye-tracker would be cool.

I just want to be able to feel the hugs

Hugs are fine, but hopefully we can spared the full visceral effects of the Hand of Satan.

Just been playing with the Z800 goggles, with built in head tracking. In mouse mode the tracking was quite easy to callibrate to get a reasonable match between head movement and the SL view. Not perfect, but good enough to remind me of VR systems I used with the RAF a lot of years ago, but 1/10th the price and 4 times the resolution!

Look for an academic paper in the next few months on this.

Hi have a VR headset and it does work with SL, had to tweak the mouse emulation for head tracking but it does work, only problem I have is that it is very hard to read any text in the game.

The Z800 is a good *start*. I truly appreciate what eMagin has been able to offer for the price.

But there is great room for improvement. I REALLY wish eMagin would bring out an upgraded product. Unfortunately, I dont think it'll ever happen. Their new offering is the x800, a reduced functionality headset. I imagine that they never sold enough of the z800 (and never will) to recoup their investment.