Over the last several years the long-running SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference served as an important marker of immersive computing’s march toward mainstream. Just a few years ago I found the Oculus meeting room hidden in a corner of the show floor where they were showing the HD prototype of the Rift featuring improved resolution.
As increasingly impressive developer kits and then consumer units arrived, VR spread out from that corner to overtake so many of the other floor presentations from both researchers and established commercial giants. Now in its third year, the VR Village serves as a central area for researchers and content creators to present their work.
Two years ago it was where Ken Perlin and his team from NYU showed Holojam — a project which recorded slices of space-time as people painted together in VR. Last year, the Synesthesia suit provided a hint at what full-body haptic feedback could feel like. This year Flock (video above) will expand upon some of the concepts of Holojam with a multi-user untethered virtual world “designed to get people to move, shake, and flock together.” These types of projects usually lack either the polish or affordable nature of consumer experiences, but instead stir the imaginations of attendees who work at the forefront of their respective fields.
“It has matured to the point where everybody knows what AR and VR is,” said VR Village Chair Denise Quesnel. “In the first year it was about introducing the technology widely to people. The second year it was about…how you can push the envelope a little more.
This year, for the third year, it’s taking chances and really going beyond where we think VR is at today and showing a little bit about what is yet to come.”In addition to the VR Village, the Computer Animation Festival that is part of the conference is adding VR content projects to that portion of the event. Instead of waiting in lengthy lines, organizer Pol Jeremias-Vila is employing a ticketing system for a specific time of day that will put visitors through a series of experiences in the Oculus Rift one after another.
Registration details for the conference are here.
Panels and presentations will also be offered allowing visitors to learn more about the projects. Here are some of the notable experience presentations, panels and talks that will be at the event.
VR/AR & OPTICS
Sunday, 30 July, 9 am – 10:30 am, Los Angeles Convention Center, Theatre 411
Varifocal Virtuality: A Novel Optical Layout for Near-Eye Display
This new optical design for see-through near-eye displays is simple, compact, varifocal, and it provides a wide field of view with clear peripheral vision and large eyebox. For objects not at the eye’s current accommodation distance, the system computationally blurs the graphics using the most up-to-date blurring technology: ChromaBlur, which accounts for high-order and chromatic aberrations of human eyes.
TwinCam
TwinCam is an omni-directional stereoscopic live-viewing camera that reduces motion blur and latency during head rotation in a head-mounted display. A user study demonstrated the effectiveness of the system’s alleviation of virtual reality sickness symptoms.
Adaptive Dynamic Refocusing: Toward Solving Discomfort in Virtual Reality
This approach to reducing discomfort in virtual reality eliminates the vergence-accommodation conflict, a fundamental flaw that affects all commercial headsets available today. It replaces traditional lenses in headsets with focus-adjustable optical systems to provide accommodation cues while taking into account the eyeglasses prescription of each individual user.
Membrane AR: Varifocal, Wide-Field-of-View Augmented Reality Display From Deformable Membranes
This augmented reality display employs novel, see-through, deformable membrane mirrors to create virtual imagery at a desired depth level within a wide field of view with the promise of a more comfortable user experience
Magic Bench: A Multi-User, Multi-Sensory AR Platform
In this solution for multi-user interactions, a group can share the same augmented environment and interact in the same animated story through a third-person POV. Instead of instrumenting a person, the approach instruments an environment, creating a seamless walk-up-and-play experience.
Holo-Doodle
Created on a paper napkin in 2016, HOLO-DOODLE combines cutting-edge technology, and some of the best creative minds in the VR world to create an intimate, social hangout for users who assume the body of a pink robot. Led by VR director Daffy London, the team brings the inside of a sleek Los Angeles club into an interactive scene where users meet up, chat, and play with other robots. The simple goal is to have fun in VR.
Digital Playgroundz
Initi.org is an artistic collective dedicated to developing…
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