Virtual Reality Programs Go Wireless

N E W   O R L E A N S, July 31 -- Designers are cutting the electronicumbilical cords that have tied people to computers for “virtualreality.”

Peep this. You stand in front of a TV screen waving a toylight-saber. The screen recreates the cheap piece of plastic into aslim silver sword moving among head-sized green bubbles as theyfloat out of a big black cauldron.

The sword’s movements, powered by a Sony PlayStation2 video gameconsole, lag a bit behind yours, making the illusion lessconvincing.

But you can spin around without worrying that you’ll snag awire. You stand free.

Despite the PlayStation’s lag, you can pop bubbles or bouncethem around on the screen. Twirl and whirl the toy; the swordfollows.

Sony’s “Medieval chamber” also offers a torch and a morningstar, a nasty weapon with a spiked iron ball attached by a chain toa wooden handle.

Edge-of-the-art Demos

It was one of 29 edge-of-the-art demonstrations at Siggraph2000, which brought 26,000 computer graphics people to New Orleans’convention center last week. Others included musical toys, new waysto show three dimensions on a flat screen, and a very closeencounter with a whole lot of live bugs.

Just about everyone who stopped by Sony’s demonstration had thesame question: “When will it be available?”

Well, said Richard Marks, one of the three Sony researchers whoput it together, “I wouldn’t do all this work if I didn’t hopesomeday it would become product.”

The setup uses inexpensive, readily available parts: aPlayStation2, a $40 video camera, and a few dollars’ worth ofplastic toys.

The camera tracks the toy by shape, size and color. A yellowfoam tube becomes a torch on screen; a blue plastic tube stuck,mace-like, through a 6-inch-wide orange ball is the morning star.

But no hand holds it. The user is invisible on screen, somethingthat game developers could fix, if they decide to use thetechnique, Marks said.