Virtual Reality Programs Go Wireless

N E W   O R L E A N S, July 31, 2000 -- 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.

New Three-D Technique

Near the other end of the “emerging technologies” area, KenPerlin, head of New York University’s Media Research Lab, hasdefinite plans for a three-dimensional technique he developed.

It also frees the user: no goggles or special glasses areneeded.

A liquid crystal “picket fence” in front of the screen turns asplintered-looking composite of three flat images taken fromdifferent angles into full 3D.

“Wow!” says Salvador Rebolledo of Mexico City, an animator forPublicidad Ubyrtal’s television sports programs. “It’s great. It’svery cool.”

NY3D, a company formed by NYU, should have a high-end model tosell a year from now for medical software and molecular modeling.Monitors for less than $1,000 should be ready for gamers’ desktopswithin another two years, Perlin said.

You can see but not touch on Perlin’s screen. If you want toshoot or stab something, Mixed Reality Systems Laboratory Inc. ofYokohama has AquaGauntlet.

It projects images on a pair of see-through screens mounted in avisor, so that you see both the real playing field and theimaginary sea-beasts which float out to attack the players.

Other players seem to wear full helmets and hold blocky,menacing guns.

Sharks, manta rays, and jellyfish float out of “cyber eggs”and attack. Once they’re dealt with, a giant crab attacks.Depending on how users hold it, the gun is either a laser gun, asword or a shield.

The plot isn’t much, an attendant must fit the visor on and holdthe cluster of wires snaking out from it, and nearly all of theplayers hold onto the visors to keep the view intact. But most aregrinning.

What’s Bugging You?

Not surprisingly, MR Labs figures its first clients are likelyto be theme parks.

At the other end of the size and reality scales is a gizmo thatlets you see what bugs would look like if you were bug-sized. Astereo microscope looks into a box of live bugs, feeding video tostereo goggles.

Caterpillars become too big to see all at once. The fuzz on ared and black wingless wasp looks deep enough to sink your handsinto.

Pull a trigger while moving your head, and the stage on whichthe plexiglass box is mounted moves to let you follow specific bugs.Many skitter around too fast to keep up with.

“We’re building another, lighter, stage. This one’s moving fivepounds of metal,” said Tom Maltzbender, manager of the visualcomputing department at HP Labs in Palo Alto, Calif.