VR Glasses and head trackers

[asia]

Dear people,
I would like to know if you experienced some Virtual Reality glasses for 3d vision.
I am near to get the Vuzix VR920 and I wander if some of you did test them with truevision. Should I render twice (cameras with different position/anlges) on render surfaces? Showd I work as if I have two screens? What do you think? Any suggestions?
Fabio

[Dimple]

Have you read this thread? It's about 3D (glasses) not VR though.

http://www.truevision3d.com/forums/indevelopment/redcyan_anaglyph_stereoscopy_depth_of_field-t19288.0.html

Still it might give you some ideas.

[djlins]

Hi There, I have used the e-Dimensional 3D shutter glasses for some stuff I have written in TV3D

http://www.edimensional.com/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=28

This was back in WinXP 32  and I just installed the NVidia stereo drivers and it took care of all of the left and right eye rendering for me (the VGA lead plugs into the eDimensional magic box before going into the NVidia Graphics card).

It was really simple and took away the need for me to code any of the left and right position rendering of a 3D world.

I used a DLP projector for the output and it turned my whole wall 3D. Racing games were superb. So was Roller Coaster Tycoon   

I also had a mate that got the Vizux headset and I have to say stay away from it. The screen is tiny and you actually see it as a small screen (It’s like a 19 inch monitor 2 or 3 feet away from you) so you don’t feel immersed in FPS games. they don’t block all light out either so above and below the glasses you can see the ceiling and your feet.

NVidias Stereo drivers doing all the work for my 3D however did then give me time to mess around with Johnny Chung Lee's Head Tracking with a Wiimote and try out the two things together (shutter glasses and head tracking).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw

That worked really well and I was supposed to come up with a game something like Space Harrier although I never got round to it in the end.
The only problem with the head tracking was you have to face forward, it tracked in the 2 axis only (x, and y) and obviously as soon as you turn your head you are no longer looking at the screen.


Then I upgraded my gaming machine to a Striker x64 setup, and NVidia got really patchy about their support for Vista and x64 so my glasses have been gathering dust ever since, and my Wiimote has been used for the Wii again. Shame ..

Aaanyways I have heard that NVidia are getting back into the 3D stuff again (as is everybody it seems) so x64 drivers and Win7 drivers are probably out there for my shutter glasses again. I might pick them up, dust them down and try out a few more ideas with them.


As a side note, for full emersion gaming I still believe the Z800 headset is still your best bet:
http://www.3dvisor.com/

It has full 6 axis head tracking, the goggles block out all sunlight, although the screens don’t go past the field of vision so you are still aware you are looking at a rectangular screen, but you can spin right around.
One problem with this is it isn’t wireless tho because of the power needed for the sound, head tracking and screens, so if you turn around more than 3 times you might garrotte yourself    you need to spin back again to untwist the cable from around your neck 


Well I hope I helped a bit.  Its Friday night and the missiz is out on a girls night so I might actually get the glasses back out to play and load up a bit of MW2 on the PC and see if the new NVidia drivers can handle that one okay?


Cheers,

Lins.

[djlins]

Just in case your interested, I dug out a link to some old Google pages with my Wiimote, Total immersion, and HeadTRacking projects on there:

http://sites.google.com/a/altfuzion.com/www/wiimote_dotnet232

Cheers,

L

[asia]

Thank you for the answer but I should say I disagree  with you because to couple head tracking and the glasses together you must have an “active” device able to follow the head movements.
I understand projecting on the wall is funny but the wall can not follow your head..
In mean time I did receive the VR920 and I found both their SDK and an undocumented (but very friendly Activex). I using the latter. Just reference it inside your Visual Studio environment. I did test with both VS2008 and VB6.

Example of the loop inner code:

Code:

ControlName.SetLeftEye
setEye -1
TV.Clear
atmosphere.SkyBox_Render
SCENE.RENDERALL
 TV.RenderToScreen
ControlName.SetRightEye
setEye 1
TV.Clear
atmosphere.SkyBox_Render
SCENE.RENDERALL
 TV.RenderToScreen

SetEye is a sub I wrote to set the camera

Code:

Public Sub SetEye(Direction)
' interpupillar distance
' Beta and Gamma view correction from the head tracker
    InterPupillar = 0.08
    alfa = sngAngleY + Beta
    x = sngPositionX + Cos(alfa + Direction * 3.141596 / 2) * InterPupillar
    z = sngPositionZ + Sin(alfa + Direction * 3.141596 / 2) * InterPupillar
    y = Land.GetHeight(sngPositionX, sngPositionZ) + MyHeight
' We update the look at position.
    snglookatX = x + Cos(alfa)
    snglookatY = y + Tan(sngAngleX + Gamma)
    snglookatZ = z + Sin(alfa)
    Scene.SetCamera x, y, z, snglookatX, snglookatY, snglookatZ
    Scene.GetCamera.RotateZ -ControlName.GetRoll
End Sub

Beta And gamma are taken from an input sub where:

Code:

ControlName.UpdateTracking
Beta=ControlName.GetYaw / 180# * 3.14159
Gamma=ControlName.GetPitch/ 180# * 3.14159

Also note:
There is an eye shield for the VR920 (14$)
http://www.vuzix.com/iwear/products_vr920.html
The z800 you mention costs 1499 $! (VR920 cost 400$) and characteristics are mainly the same (3DOF resolution 800X600).
So I should say I am happy with this product.
Ciao
Fabio