I mentioned this in class on Wednesday. They like to challenge people to sit in this chamber in the dark and a lot of people start to hallucinate after a while.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2124581/The-worlds-quietest-place-chamber-Orfield-Laboratories.html
They do a nice job of explaining things in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Rl98sqz6o&feature=youtu.be&t=2m45s
Flying Lotus ‘Layer 3’ – A Red Bull Music Academy Film from Red Bull Music Academy on Vimeo.
As I’ve mentioned, my interests have drawn more away from fashion and more towards music and event production. I spend a lot of time following electronic music artists, and stage setup is always something that sticks out. A lot of musicians will have light shows, projection mapping and other visuals, but this artist Flying Lotus took raised the bar by developing this ‘Layer 3’ projection project. As you can see in the video, he uses the three transparent layers to project something different on each, but cohesively coming together to complement his musical production.
I had never seen anything like this before finding this video, and it really is a spectacular way to bring more to the audience, allowing them to be completely submersed into the show. The project isn’t too invasive, as it doesn’t require viewers to wear 3D glasses or put themselves into a secluded environment like with the cave. Although this takes a different approach to what we typically think of when we hear virtual reality, I think this is just a peak into what is to come for the future of music production.
Another example of creating a 3D experience with projection is below, a project designed on Modul8 by Adam Guzman and Julia Tsao. This one really interests me because it appears to be so simple, but sill tricks the mind into thinking the projections have another dimension
Nosaj Thing Visual Show Compilation Test Shoot from Adam Guzman on Vimeo.
For class 2/3/14
Post Comments by 11:59 pm on 2/2/14
The Ultimate Display
by Ivan Sutherland, 1965
comments by Bruce Sterling, 2009
http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2009/09/augmented-reality-the-ultimate-display-by-ivan-sutherland-1965/
A Note on Presence Terminology
Mel Slater
http://s3.amazonaws.com/publicationslist.org/data/melslater/ref-201/a%20note%20on%20presence%20terminology.pdf
Please print out these articles and bring them with you to class on Monday for discussion. Alternatively, you can bring digital versions of the reading with you.
Discussion (comment on these questions below):
Post 1: The Ultimate Display
Bruce Sterling lists a number of present day technologies which match the concepts which Sutherland was describing. What do you believe was the most influential of these developed technologies?
What do you think of how Slater ends the article? Why do you think Sutherland choose to use such menacing imagery?
Can you name another current technology which which matches Sutherland’s concepts but is not included in Sterling’s listings (and describe it in a few sentences and how it relates)? If you can’t, write a paragraph about elaborating on how the technology Sterling points to in his article are still used today.
Post 2
Do you agree with the separation of presence and immersion? Does this differentiation make sense to you?
What do you think of Slater’s argument about presence in simulations of the Non-Real? Do you agree that Presence is possible in impossible environments?
Finally, select a topic that you find interesting, dubious, confusing or curious and explain why. Write at least a paragraph of explanation and add citations if warranted.
Article: “SAD? Virtual Reality therapy can help”
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2007-06-27/news/27675858_1_phobia-classroom-condition
Video: “A virtual reality dialogue system for the treatment of social phobia”
This article interested me particularly because it addresses virtual reality as a creative way to treat health-related conditions. US-based company, Illumenta, introduced a Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) system in which it creates situations that are most feared, mostly geared towards individuals diagnosed with the medical condition SAD-Social Anxiety Disorder, Say, for instance, you have a fear of public speaking—VRET simulates a situation in which you are giving a speech to a group of people, to essentially practice your fear. With use over a period of time, VRET hopes to gradually treat any type of phobia, fear, or addiction.“”We expose them repeatedly to stimulus they fear. Maybe they will have to speak in an auditorium or face interview sessions or be in a conference room” says Dr Mehta. In a world where pharmaceutical companies try to diagnose every symptom with medication, it excites me to see other mediums of treatment being used-especially with technology.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP48cLFeBms
I have been following these two products for a while now. In my opinion, these two devices can create a fully immersive experience for gamers and what not. Imagine we can immerse into a game we are playing, running around, jumping, without requiring lot of space. This will create a new form of exercise for gamers and for non-gamers too.
For this assignment, I watched the movie Inception (which had been discussed in class but I had never seen). You can read about the movie at ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inception or at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/?ref_=nv_sr_1 where you’ll also find trailers.
This movie places a bank heist inside a philosophy question: What is reality and what are dreams? Other movies, such as the matrix, have also explored this realm, (though rarely in such an eerie and unsettling way) as well as books such as Tad Williams City of Golden Shadows. The closer we get to convincing virtual reality, the deeper we go into that uncanny valley, and the more we get nervous about if we’ll be able to tell the difference, and even if we do, if we’ll care.
Sadly, for people who have Derealization disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derealization , they take these fictions to be their reality: that reality is a fiction.
As far as data visualization in virtual reality goes, the New York Times’ Cascade system is one of the best examples I could think of. There’s a video on their site that provides a good overview – in short, the system tracks and models the spread of NYT articles as they’re shared across social media and other sites. or popular articles, this creates an immense amount of data. At the NYT R&D lab, this project exists on a multi-screen TV wall, perhaps the only way to effectively analyze all of its data at once. While not strictly virtual reality, I feel that big data tools like this one are perfect for VR environments; the large screen size and high resolution that VR offers is the best way to present this much data at once.
Also on the NYT labs site, there are more interesting projects, like an augmented-reality mirror. Projects like this are simple enough that I wouldn’t be surprised to see them become commonplace within the next few years.
Innovega is designing contact lenses that could allow it’s users to have the same experiences offered by Google Glass, the Oculus Rift, an IMAX movie theater, and more. Unfortunately, you would still need to wear some sort of glasses in addition to the lenses. These contacts allow our eyes to focus on a screen that is only half an inch away, which is the main problem that Google Glass and the Oculus Rift have to overcome. By overcoming this limitation Innovega can make glasses with any sort of screen in them. They currently have prototypes with glanceable displays, like Google Glass, but with much higher resolution and screen space. A full view transparent display can also be projected onto the glasses to give a fully immersive augmented reality.
I’m interested in this because there seems to be few limitations to the type of hardware that can be made to work with the lenses. The contacts allow you to focus on images close up without much additional work on the screen or projector providing the image, and you can keep the close up image and the rest of the world in focus at the same time. It only needs simple hardware to project images for augmented reality. I think a logical next step is to modify this to allow for viewing movies or as a virtual reality system. This would provide a cheaper and smaller version of the Oculus Rift. Not to mention that the glasses you would wear in public for augmented reality would actually look like normal sunglasses.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57616459-76/augmented-reality-contact-lenses-to-be-human-ready-at-ces/
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/consumer-electronics/audiovideo/innovega-delivers-the-wearable-displays-that-science-fiction-promised
http://www.geekwire.com/2014/beyond-google-glass-innovega-shows-new-augmented-reality-prototype-ces/
I am very optimistic about the possibilities of this device in the world of video games. I believe that it could help usher a new, innovative immersion level in games, and it could be a major player in the future.
Also, with such a quality VR system made, and hopefully at a relatively fair price point, what other opportunities are there other than just gaming? How can this device change the way we perform research, especially over the human brain.
The article I have linked to is a review of the Rift from CES 2014, and according to the writer, the Oculus Rift is continuing to improve and get closer to being released.
Link to original Article:http://www.techradar.com/us/reviews/gaming/gaming-accessories/oculus-rift-1123963/review
Video Interview from CES 2014: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hyeUkB44IM