When Virtual Reality Was Always Virtual
Anachronistic Technology
3D is once again the rage. And with it comes an effluence of "new" technology to capture real world 3D. One such gadget was shown at the Maker Faire. From out of USC Film School comes a simple way to shoot 3D with a single DSLR (or any) camera....
Shanghai Tech
Sorry... VRtifacts has been pretty slow for a while now. An unintended consequence of enjoying some travel time. Guess I'll never be a global blogger. I did manage to uncover some tech artifacts in Shanghai. Finally back at my desk. VRtifacts...
Setup A Fastrak – Fast!
For many years, and perhaps still today, the Polhemus Fastrak was/is the reference standard for low lag, high accuracy six degrees of freedom (6DOF) tracking. Used extensively to track head mounted displays and data gloves, this magnetic...
How To Buy LCDs (in 1995)
Jeremy Oliver advises how to purchase LCD displays for your next homebrew VR helmet. (Hint: take all your optics to Montgomery Wards and try every TV and camcorder on the shelf!) Jeremy's less than successful experience with Radio Shack...
The Writing Was On the Wall…
When did we first get a clue that VR might not fully live up to its promise? The National Academy of Science's "Committee on Virtual Reality Research and Development" roster is a non-virtual who's-who of the VR world circa 1994. They certainly...
Attack of the Avatar (Show)
Trust the folks at G4 to bring us the real scoop on state-of-the-art VR from the inventors of the assembly line, Ford Motor Company. G4's reportage AND Ford's VR applications are both impressive; both the MSM and GM/Chrysler have something to...
Air Hair – Competition for VR Hair Replacement For Men
First there was Virtual Reality Hair Replacement for Men: https://youtu.be/m04Q3JdDVFY Now there's Air Hair, training to master the art of the cut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgX2P_2eTuk
Is VR the New Wasteland? (from 1993….)
VR today is like early TV: it suffers from the split personality of most start-up high-tech industries. At the one end is the top of the line research, carried out by institutions with no mandate to sell anything. At the other end, we have new...
You Put on Your Helmet One Morning and Find Yourself Transformed Into a Monstrous ******?
Yes, I've heard rumors of bugs (lice) inside VR helmets (untrue!), but researchers in Spain are bloody Kafkaesque, putting virtual cockroaches all over the screens. They "got the bright idea to simulate hoards of cockroaches swarming over...
W Industries – In the Beginning…
Chris Hand from Leicester Polytechnic offers a delightful history of W Industries, the company who brought us the various Virtuality VR game systems. His history begins in the early 80's and takes us only to early October of 1991, not long...
The Games That Would Be King
From 1991 to 1996 W Industries Virtuality systems defined the image of VR in the location based entertainment arena. Here in the US, Horizon Entertainment was their sole distributor. W Industries was remarkably innovative with their use of technology, but...
LEEP On The Cheap
Build your own LEEP style wide field of view head mounted display optics. Check out the instruction video and parts list below. In the late 80's and early 90's wide field of view head mounted displays were all the rage; immersion was...