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Omni: The "Oculus Rift" of 3D Treadmills

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Re: Omni: The "Oculus Rift" of 3D Treadmills

#21

Post by mikeknoop »

duked wrote: post #19
mikeknoop wrote: post #6

The "aha" moment for me, as an outsider to this industry, is using a special shoe to reduce friction and increase lateral stability versus only focusing on developing a 3D treadmill itself.

I completely agree, I was very excited until I saw the special shoes requirements. While I can see how it works, I don't really understand why they couldn't use a regular treadmill belt with some piezoelectric sensor to detect lateral movements.

I'm still excited; I think it's the type of innovation required to bring something like this to a mass market for a reasonable price.

Re: Omni: The "Oculus Rift" of 3D Treadmills

#22

Post by X4 »

acgourley wrote: post #16
X4 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's speculation. Do you have factual evidence to prove that current accelerometers aren't responsive enought? Like a datasheet, a publication or something similar that isn't based on gut feeling. No offense, I appreciate the Occulus Rift as a high tech device that sets new limits in VR Technology, but Smartphones have come a long way sir. Are you saying that the iPhone4s, iPhone5, Galaxy S3, Galaxy S4 and Google N…

See my sibling comment to yours for more context. There are two main problems with the sensors in current devices. The first is that the communication layers (hardware and software) between the sensors and your applications can add 60ms or more. The rendering loop itself will add another 16ms (60fps) or 33ms (30fps). The second problem is that they fast, but not very fast. Generally phone position sensors can run 100…

hmm.. I know about the humans limit, that's important to begin with. I don't know details about the latency. My busted post doesn't have that backing, but the sensitivity of 16G is enough for VR applications.

Re: Omni: The "Oculus Rift" of 3D Treadmills

#23

Post by 1qaz2wsx3edc »

duked wrote: post #19
mikeknoop wrote: post #6

The "aha" moment for me, as an outsider to this industry, is using a special shoe to reduce friction and increase lateral stability versus only focusing on developing a 3D treadmill itself.

I completely agree, I was very excited until I saw the special shoes requirements. While I can see how it works, I don't really understand why they couldn't use a regular treadmill belt with some piezoelectric sensor to detect lateral movements.

One of the design goals was "No moving parts". (And was done to keep costs down and a more maintainable/repairable/defect-free product)

Re: Omni: The "Oculus Rift" of 3D Treadmills

#24

Post by georgemcbay »

X4 wrote: post #18
georgemcbay wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck with that. What makes the Occulus Rift important is how fast it translates real world movement to signals software can process to give a true VR feel. The accelerometers and magnetometers in phones are decent for their intended purpose, but their intended purpose is not VR. This is no Rift killer.

OK, I just busted your theory. Sorry. :) It has 16G The LSM330 has an user-selectable full scale acceleration range of ±2 g/±4 g/±6 g/±8 g/±16 g and angular rate range of ±250/±500/±2000 d. Samsung Galaxy S4 accelerometers/gyro Datasheet: http://www.st.com/web/en/catalog/sense_power/FM89/SC1448/PF2... Here's a FULL Teardown of the insides of the Samsung Galaxy S4. http://www.chipworks.com/blog/recentteardowns/2013/04…

Even if there were a single phone that outperformed the Rift in real world responsiveness (and there isn't), that wouldn't really change anything because the whole value proposition of a generic smartphone printed solution is you use it with whatever phone you already have. If you have some phone other than that super phone, as the majority of smartphone users would, you then have to buy some specific $650 phone for the thing to give you comparable performance to the Rift, and you just spent more than double what a Rift costs.

Re: Omni: The "Oculus Rift" of 3D Treadmills

#25

Post by X4 »

acgourley wrote: post #16
X4 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's speculation. Do you have factual evidence to prove that current accelerometers aren't responsive enought? Like a datasheet, a publication or something similar that isn't based on gut feeling. No offense, I appreciate the Occulus Rift as a high tech device that sets new limits in VR Technology, but Smartphones have come a long way sir. Are you saying that the iPhone4s, iPhone5, Galaxy S3, Galaxy S4 and Google N…

See my sibling comment to yours for more context. There are two main problems with the sensors in current devices. The first is that the communication layers (hardware and software) between the sensors and your applications can add 60ms or more. The rendering loop itself will add another 16ms (60fps) or 33ms (30fps). The second problem is that they fast, but not very fast. Generally phone position sensors can run 100…

I just looked through the Datasheet and I have to correct my post. It HAS DATA about the latency, but I don't fully understand it. It says something about 2000 times a second.

Please open the PDF on page 14, chapter 2 Module specifications.

Re: Omni: The "Oculus Rift" of 3D Treadmills

#27

Post by pmahoney »

mililani wrote: post #9

Ugh. This will eventually destroy my knees or hips someday. It's bad enough that I go running an hour every other day. I just can't imagine doing that for 6 to 8 hours. Although, I think this will be awesome for out of shape people who love games. Might be the thing we need to goad these people into shape!

> It's bad enough that I go running an hour every other day

Well you're in luck. Running at sub-elite levels has not been correlated with osteoarthritis.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9489830 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22632690

Re: Omni: The "Oculus Rift" of 3D Treadmills

#28

Post by X4 »

georgemcbay wrote: post #24
X4 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I just busted your theory. Sorry. :) It has 16G The LSM330 has an user-selectable full scale acceleration range of ±2 g/±4 g/±6 g/±8 g/±16 g and angular rate range of ±250/±500/±2000 d. Samsung Galaxy S4 accelerometers/gyro Datasheet: http://www.st.com/web/en/catalog/sense_power/FM89/SC1448/PF2... Here's a FULL Teardown of the insides of the Samsung Galaxy S4. http://www.chipworks.com/blog/recentteardowns/2013/04…

Even if there were a single phone that outperformed the Rift in real world responsiveness (and there isn't), that wouldn't really change anything because the whole value proposition of a generic smartphone printed solution is you use it with whatever phone you already have. If you have some phone other than that super phone, as the majority of smartphone users would, you then have to buy some specific $650 phone for…

Who said that your ordinary iPhone4s or iPhone5 hasn't comparable, equal or better sensors? Am not here to speculate and I know it's tedious to prove everything, but I welcome it in your next post :)

Everyone benefits, if one bright mind comes up with a solution or a fact that others have to live with.

Re: Omni: The "Oculus Rift" of 3D Treadmills

#29

Post by uptown »

duked wrote: post #19
mikeknoop wrote: post #6

The "aha" moment for me, as an outsider to this industry, is using a special shoe to reduce friction and increase lateral stability versus only focusing on developing a 3D treadmill itself.

I completely agree, I was very excited until I saw the special shoes requirements. While I can see how it works, I don't really understand why they couldn't use a regular treadmill belt with some piezoelectric sensor to detect lateral movements.

Because something capable of achieving that currently looks like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-8eVcN2z3k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msci440q18s

Think about it. How do you accomodate movement along multiple axis simultaneously using treadmill technology in a compact, affordable, game-room-sized package?

Re: Omni: The "Oculus Rift" of 3D Treadmills

#30

Post by aaron695 »

duked wrote: post #19
mikeknoop wrote: post #6

The "aha" moment for me, as an outsider to this industry, is using a special shoe to reduce friction and increase lateral stability versus only focusing on developing a 3D treadmill itself.

I completely agree, I was very excited until I saw the special shoes requirements. While I can see how it works, I don't really understand why they couldn't use a regular treadmill belt with some piezoelectric sensor to detect lateral movements.

> I don't really understand why they couldn't use a regular treadmill belt with some piezoelectric sensor to detect lateral movements.

Other than the obvious reason as they say, no moving parts(min 4 motors, moving belts etc) How would this work? How would one get coverage on a cone shaped walking zone, sounds to me like an engineering nightmare?

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