6 ms·

PrioVR: Get your ideas moving

63 points by supermatt 13y ago

supermatt 13y ago
I'm so excited with all these recent advancements in consumer VR!
shocks 13y ago
Great, until you walk into a wall!
- devx 13y ago
  Could have sensors warning you.
  - samwilliams 13y ago
    ...breaking the immersion that you have tried so very hard to produce once or twice a minute so you can pause and reposition yourself in the real world room. This seems like the biggest remaining problem for creating realistic VR games.
    - SteveAtYEI 13y ago
      The end goal is of course to combine this system with a headset like the Rift and a treadmill like the Omni to offer fully immersive VR with boundless movement. That being said, I still think PrioVR on its own has a lot to offer to games that hasn't been offered before. Imagine a fighting game where you dodge punches by actually ducking down, or a dancing game that can actually capture the full extent of your motion and respond accurately. Both of these concepts could be implemented without any fear of running into a wall, and should present a whole new way to interact with games.
- coob 13y ago
  360 degree treadmill: http://www.virtuix.com/about/ http://www.virtuix.com/about/
  - wesley 13y ago
    This does mean kicking is out of the question.
    - supermatt 13y ago
      That and (realistic) jumping seem to be the main limitations of the omni at this stage. I wonder if the omni harness was more like a baby bouncer than a fixed support if this would solve those issues: http://static.toysrus.co.uk//medias/sys_master/8609611006271280.jpg http://static.toysrus.co.uk//medias/sys_master/8609611006271...
- supermatt 13y ago
  You could walk around the perimeter of the wall to 'calibrate' your safe environment, although thats dependent on the sensor drift (they say its very accurate). I'm assuming with the combination of all the (multiple) inertial sensor data they could probably account for that to a pretty accurate degree.
  - kayoone 13y ago
    Thats cool but still, what do you when you hit a wall in real life but could still go on in the direction in the virtual world ? That would need some confusing repositioning i would guess
    - supermatt 13y ago
      I would expect the game itself to modify its virtual world to account for my physical boundaries.
ollysb 13y ago
Multiplayer fights are going to be bloody...
swalsh 13y ago
VR seems like its getting incrementally closer to becoming a real thing. I wonder though, would that have been true without kickstarter?
- supermatt 13y ago
  I really hope this gets funded. As popular as the Sixense Stem kickstarter is (exceeded its target within hours), its severely limited by the max number of sensors (5) in its working radius for full body immersion (joint positioning in particular) or multiple player usage. We really need something like this in order to push the boundaries. The alternatives cost a small fortune. (p.s. Not affiliated, just really want this to happen.)
  - _random_ 13y ago
    Basically we need some good competition from the very start. Good for any tech.
  - svantana 13y ago
    Well one alternative could be something like kinect, if you're willing to stay in one room. Although that might be harder to make really low latency?
    - supermatt 13y ago
      Overlooking the optical limitations of the kinect, think of the potential uses for equipment like this. Accurate motion capture anywhere (think of what we already achieve with GPS and limited device gyroscopic data alone), full body augmented reality (your body is the controller, lol) while walking down the street, the obvious VR and gaming implications, etc. This is so much bigger than the ability to hit a ball around or wiggle your booty on a TV screen IMHO.
    - SteveAtYEI 13y ago
      The Kinect and other optical systems have a number of drawbacks we considered when deciding on inertial sensors. Like you say, range and latency are issues, as well as occlusion, resolution of limb rotations, difficulties with multiple actors in one space, and general inaccuracies due to the system having to make a guess as to the actor's pose and position. While the Kinect can work fine for simple games, we wanted the user's motions in game to feel natural and fluid, and to be able to extract the whole body pose even if part of the user's body is occluding another part(e.g. hands behind the back, crouched down).
minutetominute 13y ago
How is this an improvement over using a kinect to sense full body motion?
- supermatt 13y ago
  Kinect: is basically an optical sensor so it requires line of sight. It utilizes computer vision and a 3d depth map (generated by using an IR projector and receiver) to make an educated guess as to your bodies orientation. Line of sight (needs to see you), Field of View (need to be within range), Body orientation (need to look humanoid, i.e. upright with 2 arms and legs), movement speed (not faster than the optical sensor or IR projector), clothing (not too baggy), lighting (low IR), etc, can all effect the (limited) accuracy of the kinect. PrioVR: A system like this provides accurate positioning of all necessary joints in your body to form a true 3d representation of your skeletal orientation without any of the optical limitations or guesswork of the kinect. You could also use it outside, walking down the street, with a laptop in a backpack. i.e. it could be used for augmented reality in any situation. In the future, I would expect a HMD (some kind of visor - an oculus with a camera in the short-term maybe), a full body suit (like this), and some gloves (the next project these guys will be working on) to be how we augment reality. I don't think we can let this opportunity slide, which is why i'm being so vocal about it!
  - minutetominute 13y ago
    The new Kinect for the XboxOne seems to have vastly improved on the limitations of the Xbox360 Kinect. The PrioVR seems to be too ahead of its time. We don't have the battery tech to power all the tech you would be carrying on your body to play any immersive games for an extended period of time. Therefore, you would more than likely be tethered to a power source. If you need to stay in one location, might as well use a Kinect where you can be entirely free of wires. Powering just a visor would seem more feasible than a whole gaming rig. In addition, the current get-up seems cumbersome. I don't imagine that most consumers want to spend time strapping a multitude of sensors to their body just to play a quick game. The sensors themselves are great, but until we can shrink them down enough to embed them in actual clothing, I don't think we'll see them in commonplace usage.
thenomad 13y ago
Has anyone tested the tech this is based on recently? I tested it last year and it didn't work too well, but would be very interested to hear if they've ironed out the bugs since then.
- supermatt 13y ago
  I've sent YEI a message to inform them about this thread, so hopefully we will have some official response.
  - SteveAtYEI 13y ago
    Hello, my name is Steve and I am a developer at YEI. We've worked a lot with the inertial sensing technology behind the suit, and have found it to be stable and well-suited to the task of motion capture. The biggest thing that can go wrong with this kind of technology is the presence of large magnets or ferrous objects nearby, but even in the roughest environments we've taken the current version of the suit to(mostly conference halls with giant steel beams running through them), we've always been able to calibrate it to work in the environment. There are also ways to automatically account for temporary magnetic distortions by relying on the gyroscope. Outside of these sorts of distortions, inertial sensing has always seemed like a solid option for mocap to us, and one with a lot less potential for error than an optical or IK based system. I'd be glad to hear about any bugs anyone has experienced with inertial sensors in the past, and I can let you know what our system does to alleviate or sidestep those issues.
biot 13y ago
How much more would it cost to get the wireless version that they show in the video and most of the pictures? This Kickstarter is only for the wired version which seems archaic in comparison.
- supermatt 13y ago
  Its important to note that only the sensors are wired. They connect into a hub on the chest (which transmits wirelessly), so you aren't tethered to anything. The wireless sensor version (which they sell as a professional mocap device) costs about $4000 (which is still inexpensive for a current mocap suit) http://www.yeitechnology.com/productdisplay/3-space-mocap-starter-bundle http://www.yeitechnology.com/productdisplay/3-space-mocap-st... (plus straps).
supermatt 13y ago
Hmm, the original title was "Kickstarter for Full Body VR Suit". Surely this one, "PrioVR : Get your ideas moving" is a lot less descriptive?
- thenomad 13y ago
  FWIW (I see this has dropped off the front page now), I agree with you. The former title actually explained what the link linked to.
ydeft 13y ago
This is pretty awesome. I can't wait to play online multiplayer FPS games with this.

63 points by supermatt 13y ago

supermatt 13y ago

I'm so excited with all these recent advancements in consumer VR!

shocks 13y ago

Great, until you walk into a wall!

devx 13y ago
Could have sensors warning you.
- samwilliams 13y ago
  ...breaking the immersion that you have tried so very hard to produce once or twice a minute so you can pause and reposition yourself in the real world room. This seems like the biggest remaining problem for creating realistic VR games.
  - SteveAtYEI 13y ago
    The end goal is of course to combine this system with a headset like the Rift and a treadmill like the Omni to offer fully immersive VR with boundless movement. That being said, I still think PrioVR on its own has a lot to offer to games that hasn't been offered before. Imagine a fighting game where you dodge punches by actually ducking down, or a dancing game that can actually capture the full extent of your motion and respond accurately. Both of these concepts could be implemented without any fear of running into a wall, and should present a whole new way to interact with games.
coob 13y ago
360 degree treadmill: http://www.virtuix.com/about/ http://www.virtuix.com/about/
- wesley 13y ago
  This does mean kicking is out of the question.
  - supermatt 13y ago
    That and (realistic) jumping seem to be the main limitations of the omni at this stage. I wonder if the omni harness was more like a baby bouncer than a fixed support if this would solve those issues: http://static.toysrus.co.uk//medias/sys_master/8609611006271280.jpg http://static.toysrus.co.uk//medias/sys_master/8609611006271...
supermatt 13y ago
You could walk around the perimeter of the wall to 'calibrate' your safe environment, although thats dependent on the sensor drift (they say its very accurate). I'm assuming with the combination of all the (multiple) inertial sensor data they could probably account for that to a pretty accurate degree.
- kayoone 13y ago
  Thats cool but still, what do you when you hit a wall in real life but could still go on in the direction in the virtual world ? That would need some confusing repositioning i would guess
  - supermatt 13y ago
    I would expect the game itself to modify its virtual world to account for my physical boundaries.

ollysb 13y ago

Multiplayer fights are going to be bloody...

swalsh 13y ago

VR seems like its getting incrementally closer to becoming a real thing. I wonder though, would that have been true without kickstarter?

supermatt 13y ago
I really hope this gets funded. As popular as the Sixense Stem kickstarter is (exceeded its target within hours), its severely limited by the max number of sensors (5) in its working radius for full body immersion (joint positioning in particular) or multiple player usage. We really need something like this in order to push the boundaries. The alternatives cost a small fortune. (p.s. Not affiliated, just really want this to happen.)
- _random_ 13y ago
  Basically we need some good competition from the very start. Good for any tech.
- svantana 13y ago
  Well one alternative could be something like kinect, if you're willing to stay in one room. Although that might be harder to make really low latency?
  - supermatt 13y ago
    Overlooking the optical limitations of the kinect, think of the potential uses for equipment like this. Accurate motion capture anywhere (think of what we already achieve with GPS and limited device gyroscopic data alone), full body augmented reality (your body is the controller, lol) while walking down the street, the obvious VR and gaming implications, etc. This is so much bigger than the ability to hit a ball around or wiggle your booty on a TV screen IMHO.
  - SteveAtYEI 13y ago
    The Kinect and other optical systems have a number of drawbacks we considered when deciding on inertial sensors. Like you say, range and latency are issues, as well as occlusion, resolution of limb rotations, difficulties with multiple actors in one space, and general inaccuracies due to the system having to make a guess as to the actor's pose and position. While the Kinect can work fine for simple games, we wanted the user's motions in game to feel natural and fluid, and to be able to extract the whole body pose even if part of the user's body is occluding another part(e.g. hands behind the back, crouched down).

minutetominute 13y ago

How is this an improvement over using a kinect to sense full body motion?

supermatt 13y ago
Kinect: is basically an optical sensor so it requires line of sight. It utilizes computer vision and a 3d depth map (generated by using an IR projector and receiver) to make an educated guess as to your bodies orientation. Line of sight (needs to see you), Field of View (need to be within range), Body orientation (need to look humanoid, i.e. upright with 2 arms and legs), movement speed (not faster than the optical sensor or IR projector), clothing (not too baggy), lighting (low IR), etc, can all effect the (limited) accuracy of the kinect. PrioVR: A system like this provides accurate positioning of all necessary joints in your body to form a true 3d representation of your skeletal orientation without any of the optical limitations or guesswork of the kinect. You could also use it outside, walking down the street, with a laptop in a backpack. i.e. it could be used for augmented reality in any situation. In the future, I would expect a HMD (some kind of visor - an oculus with a camera in the short-term maybe), a full body suit (like this), and some gloves (the next project these guys will be working on) to be how we augment reality. I don't think we can let this opportunity slide, which is why i'm being so vocal about it!
- minutetominute 13y ago
  The new Kinect for the XboxOne seems to have vastly improved on the limitations of the Xbox360 Kinect. The PrioVR seems to be too ahead of its time. We don't have the battery tech to power all the tech you would be carrying on your body to play any immersive games for an extended period of time. Therefore, you would more than likely be tethered to a power source. If you need to stay in one location, might as well use a Kinect where you can be entirely free of wires. Powering just a visor would seem more feasible than a whole gaming rig. In addition, the current get-up seems cumbersome. I don't imagine that most consumers want to spend time strapping a multitude of sensors to their body just to play a quick game. The sensors themselves are great, but until we can shrink them down enough to embed them in actual clothing, I don't think we'll see them in commonplace usage.

thenomad 13y ago

Has anyone tested the tech this is based on recently? I tested it last year and it didn't work too well, but would be very interested to hear if they've ironed out the bugs since then.

supermatt 13y ago
I've sent YEI a message to inform them about this thread, so hopefully we will have some official response.
- SteveAtYEI 13y ago
  Hello, my name is Steve and I am a developer at YEI. We've worked a lot with the inertial sensing technology behind the suit, and have found it to be stable and well-suited to the task of motion capture. The biggest thing that can go wrong with this kind of technology is the presence of large magnets or ferrous objects nearby, but even in the roughest environments we've taken the current version of the suit to(mostly conference halls with giant steel beams running through them), we've always been able to calibrate it to work in the environment. There are also ways to automatically account for temporary magnetic distortions by relying on the gyroscope. Outside of these sorts of distortions, inertial sensing has always seemed like a solid option for mocap to us, and one with a lot less potential for error than an optical or IK based system. I'd be glad to hear about any bugs anyone has experienced with inertial sensors in the past, and I can let you know what our system does to alleviate or sidestep those issues.

biot 13y ago

How much more would it cost to get the wireless version that they show in the video and most of the pictures? This Kickstarter is only for the wired version which seems archaic in comparison.

supermatt 13y ago
Its important to note that only the sensors are wired. They connect into a hub on the chest (which transmits wirelessly), so you aren't tethered to anything. The wireless sensor version (which they sell as a professional mocap device) costs about $4000 (which is still inexpensive for a current mocap suit) http://www.yeitechnology.com/productdisplay/3-space-mocap-starter-bundle http://www.yeitechnology.com/productdisplay/3-space-mocap-st... (plus straps).

supermatt 13y ago

Hmm, the original title was "Kickstarter for Full Body VR Suit". Surely this one, "PrioVR : Get your ideas moving" is a lot less descriptive?

thenomad 13y ago
FWIW (I see this has dropped off the front page now), I agree with you. The former title actually explained what the link linked to.

ydeft 13y ago

This is pretty awesome. I can't wait to play online multiplayer FPS games with this.