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

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

Multimodal augmented reality tangible gaming

This paper presents tangible augmented reality gaming environment that can be used to enhance entertainment using a multimodal tracking interface. Players can interact using different combinations between a pinch glove, a Wiimote, a six-degrees-of-freedom tracker, through tangible ways as well as through I/O controls. Two tabletop augmented reality games have been designed and implemented including a racing game and a pile game. The goal of the augmented reality racing game is to start the car and move around the track without colliding with either the wall or the objects that exist in the gaming arena. Initial evaluation results showed that multimodal-based interaction games can be beneficial in gaming. Based on these results, an augmented reality pile game was implemented with goal of completing a circuit of pipes (from a starting point to an end point on a grid). Initial evaluation showed that tangible interaction is preferred to keyboard interaction and that tangible games are much more enjoyable

Smart Glove for Augmented and Virtual Reality

This research work is carried out on designing and prototyping a smart glove, which can conduct 3D interaction with computer MATLAB model in real time. The smart glove is constructed with only inertial measurement units for gathering and achieving human hand movement position data. This application will support the accuracy of the device and provide additional flexibilities for human interaction with other objects. The purpose of our design is to provide a smart glove with low price (less than 100€) for researchers in different institutions to develop their research projects with virtual and augmented reality. The design of hardware and software, as well as prototyping experiments is also presented

Design of a Tracking Glove for use in Virtual Reality Training Environments

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Business and Technology at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Science by Thomas A. Buteyn on April 25, 2022