AR for Leap-Rift

I am extremely interested in Augmented reality, and its application toward sound – specifically spatial audio. Thus, for my Culminating Experience I made an augmented reality panner in Unity. I did this by mounting a Leap Motion on an Oculus Rift (Leap-Rift), and downloading the Leap Motion assets package for Unity. This allowed me to get my hands in the scene with near zero latency hand tracking.https://remix.berklee.edu/graduate-studies-production-technology/1030/thumbnail.jp

Exploring Oculus Rift: A Historical Analysis of the ‘Virtual Reality’ Paradigm

This paper will first provide background information about Virtual Reality in order to better analyze its development throughout history and into the future. Next, this essay begins an in-depth historical analysis of how virtual reality has developed prior to 1970, a pivotal year in Virtual Reality history, followed by an exploration of how this development paradigm shifted between the 1970\u27s and the turn of the century. The historical analysis of virtual reality is concluded by covering the modern period from 2000-present. Finally, this paper examines the layout of the virtual reality field in respect to he history and innovations presented

Viewing the Future? Virtual Reality In Journalism

Journalism underwent a flurry of virtual reality content creation, production and distribution starting in the final months of 2015. The New York Times distributed more than 1 million cardboard virtual reality viewers and released an app showing a spherical video short about displaced refugees. The Los Angeles Times landed people next to a crater on Mars. USA TODAY took visitors on a ride-along in the "Back to the Future" car on the Universal Studios lot and on a spin through Old Havana in a bright pink '57 Ford. ABC News went to North Korea for a spherical view of a military parade and to Syria to see artifacts threatened by war. The Emblematic Group, a company that creates virtual reality content, followed a woman navigating a gauntlet of anti- abortion demonstrators at a family planning clinic and allowed people to witness a murder-suicide stemming from domestic violence.In short, the period from October 2015 through February 2016 was one of significant experimentation with virtual reality (VR) storytelling. These efforts are part of an initial foray into determining whether VR is a feasible way to present news. The year 2016 is shaping up as a period of further testing and careful monitoring of potential growth in the use of virtual reality among consumers

A Dose of Reality: Overcoming Usability Challenges in VR Head-Mounted Displays

We identify usability challenges facing consumers adopting Virtual Reality (VR) head-mounted displays (HMDs) in a survey of 108 VR HMD users. Users reported significant issues in interacting with, and being aware of their real-world context when using a HMD. Building upon existing work on blending real and virtual environments, we performed three design studies to address these usability concerns. In a typing study, we show that augmenting VR with a view of reality significantly corrected the performance impairment of typing in VR. We then investigated how much reality should be incorporated and when, so as to preserve users’ sense of presence in VR. For interaction with objects and peripherals, we found that selectively presenting reality as users engaged with it was optimal in terms of performance and users’ sense of presence. Finally, we investigated how this selective, engagement-dependent approach could be applied in social environments, to support the user’s awareness of the proximity and presence of others

MetaSpace II: Object and full-body tracking for interaction and navigation in social VR

MetaSpace II (MS2) is a social Virtual Reality (VR) system where multiple users can not only see and hear but also interact with each other, grasp and manipulate objects, walk around in space, and get tactile feedback. MS2 allows walking in physical space by tracking each user's skeleton in real-time and allows users to feel by employing passive haptics i.e., when users touch or manipulate an object in the virtual world, they simultaneously also touch or manipulate a corresponding object in the physical world. To enable these elements in VR, MS2 creates a correspondence in spatial layout and object placement by building the virtual world on top of a 3D scan of the real world. Through the association between the real and virtual world, users are able to walk freely while wearing a head-mounted device, avoid obstacles like walls and furniture, and interact with people and objects. Most current virtual reality (VR) environments are designed for a single user experience where interactions with virtual objects are mediated by hand-held input devices or hand gestures. Additionally, users are only shown a representation of their hands in VR floating in front of the camera as seen from a first person perspective. We believe, representing each user as a full-body avatar that is controlled by natural movements of the person in the real world (see Figure 1d), can greatly enhance believability and a user's sense immersion in VR.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures. Video: http://living.media.mit.edu/projects/metaspace-ii

The Labyrinth

The Labyrinth is a puzzle video game meant to be experienced with a virtual reality headset. It aims to differ from typical puzzle games by being simultaneously fun, immersive, and mentally stimulating. The game consists of three unique level types, with room for further development to create more complex versions of said levels. In this document, we discuss how we developed the game environment to effectively engage the player in enjoyable and engaging problem-solving challenges. The game has been rigidly tested and play-testers were surveyed on their experiences, in order to improve the game