VR Hardware

This VR Treadmill Comes With Its Own Headset & Haptic Vest

May 31, 2022 From vrscout

Introducing the “world’s first metaverse gate.”

StepVR, a VR technology service company based out of China, is launching a commercial omnidirectional motion system complete with its own VR headset and haptic vest. Gates01, as it’s referred to by the company, features a unique open-air design inspired by Steven Speilberg’s 2018 film, Ready Player One. The result is a futuristic-looking immersive cage aimed at education, entertainment, sports, and work.

The device covers an area of roughly 3 square meters and features an omnidirectional treadmill, allowing you to physically walk or run freely in any direction while remaining in a fixed position. Gates01 also features its own dedicated VR headset, a haptic vest, robotic force feedback, and motion capture gloves, allowing you to experience a sense of touch while in VR.

StepVR claims that its device can “restore the sense of vision, hearing, touch, smell, and vestibular balance in the virtual world,” though it’s still unclear at this time how exactly the device will provide smell haptics. In a video released by the company, you can spot a Vive Tracker mounted to the back of the user. This is most likely used to track the position of the user while on the treadmill.

As for the VR headset, StepVR used a design referred to as pancake optics to reduce the overall size and weight of the device while maintaining a solid 4K resolution. According to StepVR founder & CEO Dr. Guo Cheng, the headset weighs approximately 150 grams (about the same as your average orange).

Credit: Handout

According to StepVR, this system not only provides a more immersive experience compared to other omnidirectional treadmills but a more comfortable and natural experience as well. In the video provided, the company states that anyone can learn to walk on the device in just a matter of minutes.

In 2019, StepVR launched Future Battle, an esports brand dedicated to expanding the competitive VR scene in China. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the company has opened over 140 stores over the past three years, with another 60 partner stores still scheduled to open. Gates01 will launch simultaneously throughout participating VR venues in Europe, Japan, Korea, the Middle East, North America, and Singapore this October.

Moving forward, the company plans on launching a streamlined version of Gates01 in 2023 that’s designed specifically for individuals and families. According to the company, this consumer-friendly model will be 50% smaller than the original as well as significantly lighter, allowing it to fit into tighter spaces such as the home, gym, or office.

“Entertainment and education are cornerstone sectors for the metaverse,” said Guo during an interview with the South China Morning Post. “Our goal is to make the next generation of gear for home-computing platforms [that come] after the smartphone,” adding, “Not by jabbing the screen of a pad or smartphone, but by entering a metaverse through an avatar, you can run, touch things, even smell things.”

For more information on StepVR and Gates01 visit the official website.

Image Credit: StepVR

This Bizarre VR Gas Mask Makes Breathing In VR More Difficult

May 13, 2022 From vrscout

The AirRes Mask can be used to simulate a variety of stressful and high-risk scenarios.

A research team working out of the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences in Austria has developed a unique accessory for the Meta Quest 2 VR headset that allows users to interact with the virtual world by simply breathing. The bizarre-looking peripheral can also be used to hinder the user’s breathing in order to simulate “adverse” environmental conditions, such as smoke caused by fire.

The AirRes Mask, as it’s referred to by the team, is composed of a standard half-face respirator equipped with a sensor and resistance disk. The device works by measuring the user’s breathing, allowing them to engage with the virtual world in a variety of unique ways.

In a video provided by the team, we catch a glimpse of the device being used to play the harmonica. Depending on the position of the virtual instrument and the force of the breathing, the user is able to trigger different notes. Later on, we see the user operating a virtual blowgun and blowing up balloons by carefully breathing into the apparatus.

As previously mentioned, the AirRes Mask can also be used to simulate breathing resistance in VR, allowing developers to safely immerse user’s in a variety of harsh environments. This is demonstrated with a firefighter simulator in which the user battles a raging inferno from within a confined space.

As the smoke begins to fill the room, the resistance disk restricts airflow through the mask to simulate smoke inhalation and a decrease in stamina. According to the research team, hindering a user’s breathing can increase their stress levels, further immersing the user in a variety of high-risk scenarios.

“Breathing resistance can provide feedback for simple actions such as blowing into wind instruments, or for more complex contextual information about environmental conditions or the state of the user’s virtual avatar,” said the research team in their full research paper.

“For instance, effects of virtual smoke or low stamina of the avatar can be expressed by the system as an increase in breathing resistance. We explore such action-based and context-based mappings of breathing interaction in a user study and investigate the system’s ability to precisely map a user’s breathing force to actions as well as its ability to provide noticeable variations in breathing resistance.”

We’ve seen our fair share of bizarre multi-sensory technology in the past, from a haptic feedback device that utilizes ultrasonic transducers to simulate the feeling of spiders crawling on your face to a location-based experience that lets you smell the inside of a tree. The AirRes Mask offers yet another way for developers to immerse VR users in their experiences via multi-sensory technology.

In addition to entertainment, the device could prove immensely useful for training purposes. The technology offers companies and organizations a way to efficiently simulate stressful and even potentially dangerous scenarios without risk to the trainee.

For more information on the project, read the team’s full research paper, AirRes Mask: A Precise and Robust Virtual Reality Breathing Interface Utilizing Breathing Resistance as Output Modality.

Image Credit: Salzburg University of Applied Sciences

Nvidia Uses Holograms To Shrink The Size Of VR Headsets

May 5, 2022 From vrscout

Hologram technology can greatly improve pixel details in VR.

One of the biggest barriers to getting more people into VR headsets is the headsets themselves. They can be bulky and uncomfortable to wear because of the technical requirements involved, such as display optics, cameras, and sensors.

The lenses can also have a major impact on the size and shape of typical VR headsets, such as those featured on the Meta Quest or HTC Vive. They use an eyepiece and a display panel that needs to be a specific distance from each other in order for you to have a fully immersive VR experience. One solution to reducing the size of a VR headset is by using pancake lenses to shrink the gap between the lenses. That said, this design and approach can only deliver a 2D experience.

Nvidia has solved this problem by using holograms to help overcome the issue of the necessary space needed between the eyepiece and display panel, creating a much thinner solution to accessing VR content.

A recently published report written by Jonghyun Kim, Manu Gopakumar (Stanford University), Suyeon Choi (Stanford University), Yifan Peng (Stanford University), Ward Lopes, and Gordon Wetzstein (Stanford University) takes an incredibly deep and detailed dive into Nvidia’s Hologram Glasses and explains how they work as well as the potential impact they could have on the future of VR technology.

To help you digest this relatively complex information, we’re going to break it down for you without getting overly technical.

Basically, by placing a hologram image (Virtual-mode Holographic display) between the eyepiece and a Geometric phase lens, Nvidia was able to reduce the gap between the two lenses, thus reducing the size of the headset, using a process called a pupil-replicating waveguide.

The results are Holographic Glasses designed for VR that can deliver digital content in 2D or 3D VR content to each eye. The device is composed of a pupil-replicating waveguide, a spatial light modulator, and a geometric phase lens that come together to create amazing holographic images in a lightweight and thin form factor.

Nvidia’s Holographic Glasses provide a diagonal field of view of 22.8°, a 2.3 mm static and 8 mm dynamic eye box, and support 3D focus cues. Not only are they less bulky, but they are also very lightweight, weighing in at just a tad over 2 ounces. The proposed design can even deliver full-color 3D holographic images using an optical stack of 2.5 mm thickness.

Through a process called Dynamic eye box with waveguide, the Hologram Glasses are able to follow your gaze and move the viewpoint of the content you are looking at. And thanks to the use of HOGD (High-order gradient descent), you are able to see it with better image quality in higher contrast than SGD (Stochastic gradient descent). What I’m trying to say is that this allows you to see pixels in more detail.

Nvidia’s Hologram Glasses are still in a prototype phase but the company is already looking forward to what their technology can do for the future of VR. Not only could have a major impact on consumer VR and everyday wearables, but it could transform how VR and AR are used for Enterprise solutions, digital twinning, automobiles, homes, aerospace, and more.

Click here to learn more about Nvidia’s Hologram Glasses and dive into that detailed paper.

Image Credit: Nvidia

Samsung Losing Ground In VR/AR Due To ‘Obsession’ With Foldable Tech

January 22, 2022 From vrscout

Company’s like Apple and Meta are leaving Samsung in the virtual dust.

According to a new report by The Korea Herald, Samsung is steadily losing its position within the VR/AR space due to its unhealthy “obsession” with foldable smartphone technology.

In 2019 Samsung unveiled its first commercially-available foldable smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Fold. The Android-based device received mixed reception ahead of its release later that same year. The device garnered praise for its innovative design along with stark criticism for its low durability.

**Samsung Galaxy Fold / Image Credit: Samsung**

Recent market data indicates that the VR/AR market is set to skyrocket over the next several years. By 2024, we could be looking at a roughly $300 billion industry. While company’s such as Apple and Meta have already begun the development of their own dedicated XR devices, however, Samsung has continued to focus on expanding its lineup of foldable smartphones.

“Big tech companies, rather than smartphone manufacturers, are leading XR devices because they have the necessary content and platforms,”said Kim Gwang-soo, an analyst at eBest Investment and Securities, adding, “Google has an operating system Android, Microsoft has Xbox and Sony has PlayStation. It’s risky for Samsung to roll out XR devices, so it has no choice but to stick to foldable smartphones.”

Concept art of Apple’s XR device / Image Credit: The Information

According to a recent report by market tracker Counterpoint Research, Samsung held its position as the number one global smartphone provider in 2021 but only grew its overall sales by 0.9% on-year whereas its competitors, Apple and Xiaomi, grew 25.5% and 32.5% respectively.

Samsung’s decision to overlook immersive technology in favor of the dwindling smartphone market could spell disaster for the company down the line. Apple has already stated that it plans on replacing its lineup of iPhone devices with dedicated AR and VR headsets within the next 10 years, pointing towards a dramatic shift within the smartphone industry.

**Samsung Galaxy Lite / Image Credit: Samsung**

That said, Samsung has at least made several steps towards improving its XR technology. This past November the company invested in the California-based XR glasses manufacturer DigiLens. We also caught a glimpse at a pair of fitness-focused AR glasses called Samsung Glasses Lite during CES 2020, but have received little to no information since.

It would be a shame to see the company that brought us the pioneering Gear VR fall to the wayside. Hopefully, Samsung will have more to share about its VR/AR offerings in the coming months.

Feature Image Credit: Samsung