VIRTUAL REALITY PROJECT.
INCREASING SPACIOUSNESS IN VIRTUAL REALITY
While studying I had an opportunity to work and run experiments in a real Virtual Reality Lab. VR MediaLab is the Aalborg University Centre for Virtual Reality and Interactive Media. It was inaugurated in August 1999 with unique computing and visualisation facilities in a dedicated building complex of NOVI, the Science Park of Aalborg University. The VR-facilities comprise an sgi super computer (16 cpu's, 6 graphics pipes) and three visualisation arenas: (6-sided CAVE; Panorama screen of 160 dg., 7.1 m diameter; and 3D Power Wall, 8 m wide).
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About Project
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Ever since the dawn of space travels it has been a dream of many a child to explore the vast emptiness that is the universe. In space, one can imagine limitless possibilities of perceiving spaciousness and the chance to experience things that are not possible on the Earth, for example flying through a limitless open space observing extraterrestrial surroundings. In this project we used virtual reality as a tool for transporting individuals to outer in order to remove the spatial boundaries that surround them in the real world.
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Our initial solutions for expanding the spaciousness were constrained by the confinements of the size of the laboratory. The area, in which it was possible to track a person in 3D with the required fidelity, was limited to 1m2 . We took inspiration from other projects that were doing research in ways of expanding an explorable area in virtual reality, but we found that none of them were dealing with areas as small as 1m2. So we decided to design and implement our own solution for expanding the sense of spaciousness in such a small area by immersing an individual into a virtual environment. Our system allowed users to fly between and explore worlds while playing a simple game: collecting artefacts. We were hoping that the notion flying from place to place would immerse people into the virtual environment to such an extent that they forget the confinement and physical constraints of the laboratory space.
This project took a look at possible ways of reducing the limit that tracking environment forces us to think about. The theory and practical applications of moving between different parts of the world by means of flying were explored with the hope that this would help the user of the system forget that there is only a small area one can move in.
Motion capture system with 16 cameras system was used. Implementation was done on the game development tool Unity.
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