Welcome to 14:332:476 Virtual Reality Spring 2008

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Welcome to14:332:476 Virtual RealitySpring 2008 Grigore C. Burdea Ph.D. Director, Human–Machine Interface Laboratory, CAIP Center, Rutgers University. http://www.caip.rutgers.edu/vrlab/

Class web site: www.caip.rutgers.edu/vrlab/vrclass Textbook site: www.vrtechnology.org

Grading Criteria (476): Quizzes 10%, Midterm 45% Final 45% Laboratory assignments graded separately (for 478)

Textbook: Burdea and Coiffet, Virtual Reality Technology, 2nd Edition, Wiley, 2003

Textbook web site: www.vrtechnology.org

Laboratory Hardware

Introduction

What is Virtual Reality?

Introduction It is not augmented reality….

Introduction What is Virtual Reality? “A high-end user-computer interface that involves real-time simulation and interaction through multiple sensorial channels.” (vision, sound, touch, smell, taste)”

Introduction

Introduction Sensorama Simulator, US Patent #3,050,870, 1962

VR Short History 1963+ Ivan Sutherland's doctoral theses: SKETCHPAD: stereo HMD, position tracking, and a graphics engine. 1966+ Tom Furness: display systems for pilots; 1967+ Brooks developed force feedback GROPE system;

Introduction Ivan Sutherland’s HMD (1966+)

Introduction Brooks’s Grope Project (1977)

VR Short History 1977 Sandin and Sayre invent a bend-sensing glove 1979 Raab et al: Polhemus tracking system 1989 Jaron Lanier (VPL) coins the term virtual reality 1994 VR Society formed

Introduction NASA … a pioneer in VR The first complete system was developed by NASA “Virtual Visual Environmental Display” (VIVED early 80s; they prototyped the LCD HMD; Became “Virtual Interface Environment Workstation” (VIEW) 1989

Introduction NASA VIEW system (1989)

Introduction NASA VIEW system (1992)

Introduction Why NASA? Large simulation and training needs; Could not send humans to other planets; Relatively small budgets.

Introduction Towards Commercialization… The first commercial VR systems appeared in the late 80s produced by VPL Co. (California): The VPL “Data Glove” and The VPL “Eye Phone” HMD

Introduction The VPL DataGlove (1987) cost $8,500

Introduction The Matel PowerGlove (1989)

The first commercial VR glove for entertainment – Mattel Power Glove $50 (1989)

Early HMDs were massive The Flight Helmet (ca. 1990) weighs 5 lbs

…and had poor resolution

Introduction • Virtual Reality in the early 90s…. • Emergence of first commercial Toolkits: • WorldToolKit (Sense8 Co.); • VCToolkit (Division Ltd., UK); • Virtual Reality Toolkit VRT3 (Dimension Ltd./Superscape, UK); • Cyberspace Developer Kit (Autodesk)

Introduction Superscape VRT3 Development System

Introduction • Virtual Reality in the early 90s…. • Emergence of first non-commercial toolkits: • Rend386; • Later Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML 1.0); • Later still Java and Java 3D;

Introduction Successor is AVRIL ("A Virtual Reality Interface Library“) C library for creating Created at U. Waterloo, Canada ece.uwaterloo.ca/~broehl/avril.html Scene created with Rend386

Introduction • Virtual Reality in the early 90s…. • PC boards still very slow (7,000 – 35,000 polygons/sec); • First turnkey VR system – Provision 100 (Division Ltd.) • Emergence of faster graphics rendering architectures at UNC Chapel Hill: “Pixel Planes”; Later “Pixel Flow”;

Introduction 35,000 polygons/sec; $26,000 (with two co-processors)/card Require up to 6 PC slots for stereo version Stride PC graphics accelerator

Introduction 35,000 polygons/sec; $64,000 (including texture generator, tracker, 3-D audio, HMD and software) Provision 100 VR turnkey system (Division Ltd., UK)

Introduction Provision 100 VR turnkey system (Division Ltd., UK)

Introduction ~ 1 Million triangles/sec; Pixel Planes 5 VR system (UNC)

xBox 360 500 Million poly/sec 2005 Rendering speed comparison SGI vs. PCs

Laboratory VR Station prices (2002)

VR Market growth

The key elements of a VR System

Welcome to 14:332:476 Virtual Reality Spring 2008