low cost VR computer for second life

here's the start (and progress) of a low cost do it yourself virtual reality mobile set up to be used in second life, so far it works great.

photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmtorrone/sets/1710794/

new year in vr:
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/01/virtual_new_years_photos_and_v.html

we'll have more on the MAKE land here about soon too.
secondlife://Tenera/64/192

cheers,
pt
(torrone trumbo in sl)

A warm welcome to the SL Forums, Phillip! I'm gonna check this out. Ah, the joy of crafting your own things.

What kinda performance you getting on this mobile rig? Is it stable with wifi?

ok ok..... wow.... quite impressive.
Next.... can you get sl to play on a playstation portable?

it's stable with wifi and evdo, you really need to optimize the os and run second life a little different than a desktop system, but it's usuable for exploring and much more now. the HUD is really helpful too, add objects to click to talk for you...like "join me on skype or team speak to talk to me, etc.."

the base system spec to pull all this off (i think) will be a 800mhz to 1ghz pc, 768 to 1gb ram, vga out, sound/mic, 2 usb ports (and/or pcmcia).

i'll post more as i experiment, but so far i think it might be time for lower cost rigs to actually start doing this.

once they release sl for linux...

:-]

Kewl, thanxies for the info! I like how you're scaling this "on the cheap", as in, it's a practical, ghetto (not in an unglorious way) approach that keeps BUDGET$ in mind.

Now, what could be next... you could MAKE this mobile system as prim attachments and wear it on your av, while you're really wearing this! Wouldn't this be something?

you could probally use half the physical hardware and vnc it it to your wearible terminal

Nice job, Philip. I think this is perhaps the first working Gargoyle gear.

What's the hardware around your hand - the one in this picture?

What kinda battery life do you get running SL this way? It eats 100% of my proc most of the time and in so doing tears through the battery pretty quickly (about 30 mins). *thinks* Hmm. I suppose you might get longer battery life since the laptop isn't using its LCD?

Awesome work, man!

That's a P5 glove, a kind of HID like the old nintendo powerglove. IR sensors near the computer capture the motion of your hand in 3D (position and rotation) and translate that to presaved gestures or mouse motion. Bending the fingers can also be mapped to the interface. Neat idea. In my limited use of it, I couldn't achieve fine motor control with it (I do a lot of building in SL that requires small mousing movements. =/ ). Sure is fun to play with, though.

That makes me think that there is a lot of old tech which was at one time quite costly and "experimental", but was never really used to its full potential, so it currently goes forgotten. I remember some fascinating sensory input controllers that synthesizer tweakers put together because they were bored of just playing on plastic keys and twisting knobs and sliders. Generate enough interest and it could be profitable...

on a less radical angle, I'd like to see something like Wacom tablets, with their pressure sensitivity, be used more in SL. It could lead to all manner of new expressivity.

First of all let me congratulate you on your willingness to go out and create the future

Assuming you don't know about it already, you might want to check out the Gilder Technology Report at www.mvis.com. This technology could make your system a whole-lot more portable/

i actually couldn't stop myself and bought a p5 glove when i first saw it in a gamestore in the mall a few years back. i didn't get alot of use out if it, but it came with a couple interresting games to get a feell for how it worked. i remember one where you sort of reach into the screen trying to grab these balls bouncing around inside your monitor space. was lots of fun, but also reminded me we've got a ways to go on consumer 3d input technology before it's worth trying to do any 3d building with one. it also worked as a 2d mouse. could point at things on your screen, pull your trigger finger to double click and so forth my arm got tired after a while hehe

I like what you've done, very kewl looking. I'd be interested to know more about how you have your glove setup to the system. Did you write your own software or use the supplied software(which I found somewhat limiting)? How you use the P5 in a portable context would be my main question I suppose, with the large sensor unit and all?
I'd also read about something on the P5 forums about converting to glove for left handed use and thought perhaps that might be useful in a project such as this. Mostly I'm just very glad to see there are others out there working with VR Technologies and I would like to tip my hat to you. I'd be interested to hear more about your project and to offer my assistance in anyway I can.

I'd also like with your permission of course to post several of the pictures you took in my SL center for VR Technologies @ Wards(64,64)

Feel free to contact me if your ever looking for assistance on a project or just looking to BS about VR. VR Geeks are few and far between these days. And best of luck to you on your VR System.

Neat, is there a big list of what parts you used to construct it somewhere?

-Adam