From: broehl@sunee.waterloo.edu (Bernie Roehl)
Subject: Re: Virtual Reality System 
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 20:19:50 GMT

In article <BrwnMH.Gy0@watserv1.waterloo.edu> cdwilde@ritchie.waterloo.edu (Chris Wilde) writes:
>since I don't know the software techniques or programming he has done, I
>can not describe that.

I can -- Dave and I wrote the software over the course of the last eight
months or so, and we're making it available to interested programmers
(for non-commercial use only).

The version of the code that Chris saw won't be released for a few weeks
(some cleaning-up to do, plus documentation to write).  However, an earlier
version can be found on sunee.uwaterloo.ca in the pub/rend386 directory.
Get the read.me and demo3.zip; that's all you need unless you're a fairly
good C programmer with lots of patience (and Turbo C++ or Borland C++).

>I haven't gone into how the camera is used since I am uncomfortable telling
>too much.

I won't give away anything Dave feels is proprietary, but I can tell you he's
using a special board he designed and built himself to process the video
signals and do real-time tracking of head movements (using four non-coplanar
infrared LEDs attached to the back of the Head Mounted Display).  The math
to do the tracking is pretty ugly, but runs fast.

>The computer he is using is a 486 at 50MHz.

The software runs on any 386 or 486 system, but runs better on faster
systems.

>The head mounted display does have its limits.  I found I had only about
>only 30 degrees of movement to either the right or the left

This is because the camera is behind you, and if you tilt your head too much
it loses sight of some of the LEDs.  A better setup would be to mount the
"target" on the top of the HMD and attach the camera to the ceiling overhead
pointing down.  That way you could turn a full 360 degrees without any
problems.  (Of course, you couldn't look more than 30 degrees up or down, but
that's probably less of a factor since you don't do that very much in the
physical world either).

>Due to the cheap nature of the Nintendo Powerglove, after a period of use,
>the metaphysical hand (which is an object in the VR BTW) tends to jump.  A
>reset takes care of that.

A reset of the glove, that is -- not the computer.

>Overall, the entire demo was astounding.  Movement was fluid, the controls
>could be gotten used to (I generally don't use a joystick single handed and
>never in my left hand, but the Powerglove takes up the right).

We call it "wheelchair mode".  Your left hand operates the joystick, which
moves you around exactly as if you were in a powered wheelchair.  With the
Head Mounted Display, you can look around, and you can manipulate objects
with the glove.

>Perhaps a mouse might have been easier.

Mouse support is built in to the software, but is best used in screen mode
(not HMD mode).

>Dave feels that there
>will probably be an affordable head mounted display available within
>the next year [I'm more cynical, I say 2-3].

I agree with Dave -- some time in the next 12 months, probably sooner.

>There you are.  $600 and some free time and you can have your own fully 3D
>world.

Or you can wait a few months and buy a packaged system at your local video
game dealer (if the various rumors I've heard are true).

-- 
	Bernie Roehl, University of Waterloo Electrical Engineering Dept
	Mail: broehl@sunee.waterloo.edu OR broehl@sunee.UWaterloo.ca
	BangPath: uunet!watmath!sunee!broehl
	Voice:  (519) 885-1211 x 2607 [work]
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games