VOL. 29, NO. 10, November 2015

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1 VOL. 29, NO. 10, November 2015 November 2015 l DesertLeaf 1

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At-Home Virtual Reality Is Now Just Reality by Craig Baker Human beings have been dreamers since time immemorial.

somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of the time we spend awake. This may help partially explain why we as a species have always sought ways to supplement our reality.

Indeed, the 2011 book Infinite Reality points out, Stray thoughts, dreams, chemical influences, or religious beliefs all point to an inherent human need and desire to transcend reality as we know it.

But are we, as consumers, ready for VR? The effort to create a more immersive media experience can be traced back more than 2,000 years.

3 At-Home Virtual Reality Is Now Just Reality by Craig Baker Human beings have been dreamers since time immemorial. Not only do we rely on dreams during sleep to help us encode information gained during the waking hours, but, studies have suggested, our minds wander, or tune out a phenomenon called daydreaming somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of the time we spend awake. This may help partially explain why we as a species have always sought ways to supplement our reality. We do so by inventing and telling stories, creating art and, more recently, by allowing our minds to escape through various avenues of digital media. Indeed, the 2011 book Infinite Reality points out, Stray thoughts, dreams, chemical influences, or religious beliefs all point to an inherent human need and desire to transcend reality as we know it. And now, thanks in part to a multimilliondollar 2012 Kickstarter campaign, a whole new tech movement is bringing virtual reality closer to our living room than ever before. But are we, as consumers, ready for VR? The effort to create a more immersive media experience can be traced back more than 2,000 years. The ancient Greeks created scripts, 3-D props, and scenery to bring their dramas to life in the mid-sixth century BC, and the invention of the printing press made virtual travel through literature affordable and accessible to most of the literate public in the midfifteenth century. Joseph Niépce s first photograph was taken and developed in the 1820s, and in 1893 Thomas Edison publicly unveiled the kinetoscope, which looked something like a jukebox and allowed a single viewer to watch a short film through a sort of peephole. French brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière debuted their silent short film The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station to an unprepared audience in 1895, and legend has it that the head-on view of the approaching locomotive sent many an audience member fleeing the theater in terror. Movies almost all had sound attached to them by the early 1930s, We can fool our senses, now. November 2015 l DesertLeaf 47

Photos by Craig Baker Courtesy: Flickr user Maurizio Pesce via Creative Commons and when a young visionary named Orson Welles did a radio broadcast in 1938 based on H. G.

supposed alien invasion. The show was, of course, a legendary success. Perhaps the first attempt at true user immersion was made by filmmaker Morton Heilig with his 1962 Sensorama machine.

scents, and included a body-tilting feature. The first VR headset appeared in a Harvard lab six years later.

4 Photos by Craig Baker Courtesy: Flickr user Maurizio Pesce via Creative Commons and when a young visionary named Orson Welles did a radio broadcast in 1938 based on H. G. Wells s novel The War of the Worlds, people nationwide, unaware that they were listening to a fictional play, pointed their rifles to the skies and set out on overcrowded highways to escape a supposed alien invasion. The show was, of course, a legendary success. Perhaps the first attempt at true user immersion was made by filmmaker Morton Heilig with his 1962 Sensorama machine. Heilig made at least one arcade-style prototype in which a user could watch one of several short films in stereoscopic 3-D; the machine also created wind at appropriate times, could supply different scents, and included a body-tilting feature. The first VR headset appeared in a Harvard lab six years later. Nicknamed the Sword of Damocles because it was so large and cumbersome that it had to be tethered to the ceiling, inventor Ivan Sutherland s device could display images only as monochromatic wireframe outlines. Advancements in desktop computing in the late 1970s and early 80s enabled graphic artists to render images in multiple colors and at greater speed than ever before, and as a result, VR saw a surge in interest in the 1980s and 90s. But outside of the academic and commercial applications of the Cave Automatic Virtual Environments, or CAVEs, which are essentially three-walled rooms made out of 3-D projections screens, the technology has never been quite strong enough to captivate the general public. When Nintendo launched its tabletop console Virtual Boy, in 1995, the device performed so poorly in both user satisfaction and sales that the release was something worse than a flop to many, it sounded more like the death knell for consumer VR. And for the greater part of two decades, that was basically true, though commercial applications for the CAVE continued to independently and quietly thrive. There is a CAVE on the University of Arizona campus, housed in the Arizona Laboratory for Immersive Visualization Environments, or AZ-LIVE. Sci- Left to right, top to bottom: Ken McAllister demonstrates Google Cardboard, an affordable VR product that runs on any Android device and can be purchased online for less than $10. The Power Glove was another attempt by Nintendo to bring gamers closer to the virtual worlds of their games. With more than 250,000 items, the Learning Games Initiative is one of the largest collections of video games on the planet. An omnidirectional VR treadmill, the Omni by Virtuix, is displayed in conjunction with an Oculus Rift headset. 48 DesertLeaf l November 2015

Steven Eislen on the virtual surface of Mars, as seen by rocket scientists from NASA s Jet Propulsion Lab. entific visualization specialist Marvin Landis is the coordinator of that lab.

performing on a virtual stage, to rocket scientists from the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) taking a close-up look at the surface of Mars. But, says Landis, nobody is immune to the charms of VR.

Someone who has intellectualized one of the world s favorite methods of escape from reality is Ken McAllister, co-director of the Learning Games Initiative at the UA, which houses one of the largest

The archive has more than 250,000 total items in storage at several locations, including upward of 120 unique video game system consoles, all of which are kept in working order.

people up on a virtual parapet. This has been more or less true of the VR experience for about the last 25 years, so long as you ve had access to a $500,000 CAVE.

5 Steven Eislen on the virtual surface of Mars, as seen by rocket scientists from NASA s Jet Propulsion Lab. entific visualization specialist Marvin Landis is the coordinator of that lab. As such, he s seen any number of projects that the average person might consider unusual made immersive in the CAVE: from psychological experiments involving digital spiders, to a digital actor performing on a virtual stage, to rocket scientists from the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) taking a close-up look at the surface of Mars. But, says Landis, nobody is immune to the charms of VR. Even the JPL people were acting like little kids, Landis says. You know, Take my picture on Mars, and here they are rocket scientists. Someone who has intellectualized one of the world s favorite methods of escape from reality is Ken McAllister, co-director of the Learning Games Initiative at the UA, which houses one of the largest collections of video games and video game memorabilia in the world. The archive has more than 250,000 total items in storage at several locations, including upward of 120 unique video game system consoles, all of which are kept in working order. Says McAllister of the most recent technological advancements in building and projecting virtual spaces: We re beginning to be able to create worlds that feel to us like we re actually in those spaces. We can fool our senses, now, he says, adding that a VR experience messes with your proprioception, it messes with your balance you can actually generate feelings of vertigo (for example) by putting people up on a virtual parapet. This has been more or less true of the VR experience for about the last 25 years, so long as you ve had access to a $500,000 CAVE. But when an 18-year-old tech prodigy named Palmer Luckey put his Oculus Rift headset on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter in August 2012, Oculus pulled in $2.4 million that month alone, and the consumer VR market was reenergized almost instantaneously. Big-name players, like Sony, HTC, Samsung, and Microsoft, have since announced their own versions of wearable VR devices, and in March 2014, Oculus became part of the Facebook team in a $2 billion buyout. The Rift Free Workshop for Caregivers Practicing Self-Care for the Family Caregiver Find balance and freedom in your family caregiving. This workshop will guide family caregivers in the development of basic caregiving skills for the elderly and chronically ill. Workshops are free and open to the community. Presented by Marianne Schloss, RN, M.Div. from Casa de la Luz Hospice. November 21, a.m. noon Dove of Peace Lutheran Church 665 W. Roller Coaster Road Tucson, AZ To register call Hospice services are paid for by Medicare casahospice.com November 2015 l DesertLeaf 49

Craig Baker Steven Eislen demonstrates the second-generation Oculus Rift VR headset for developers.

Linkable products, like Virtuix s omnidirectional treadmill, that eliminate the need for joysticks, are starting to

With affordable and convenient VR poised to infiltrate homes worldwide within the next year, Landis says that VR

projections, and adding haptic feedback, or multisensory input, to virtual worlds.

vision, computer lags, limited graphic capabilities public access to, and interest in, the technology has already

This year s Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, featured 27 vendors dedicated to VR; the same event last year had only

6 Craig Baker Steven Eislen demonstrates the second-generation Oculus Rift VR headset for developers. has already shipped two separate developer versions; the consumer version is scheduled for release early next year. Linkable products, like Virtuix s omnidirectional treadmill, that eliminate the need for joysticks, are starting to appear independently, as well. With affordable and convenient VR poised to infiltrate homes worldwide within the next year, Landis says that VR research is now focusing on eliminating the need for wearable devices altogether, with things like holographic projections, and adding haptic feedback, or multisensory input, to virtual worlds. And though, Landis says, the complaints about VR today are not so different from those of years ago limited field of vision, computer lags, limited graphic capabilities public access to, and interest in, the technology has already spurred it forward at hyperspeed. This year s Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, featured 27 vendors dedicated to VR; the same event last year had only six VR specialists. So, whether you re ready for it or not, VR is coming and fast. And this time it looks as if it might actually be here to stay. The only thing left to decide is how deep into the realm of the virtual you are willing to go. DL Craig Baker is a local freelance writer. Comments for publication should be addressed to letters@desertleaf.com. 50 DesertLeaf l November 2015

CSC 2524, Fall 2018 Graphics, Interaction and Perception in Augmented and Virtual Reality AR/VR

CSC 2524, Fall 2018 Graphics, Interaction and Perception in Augmented and Virtual Reality AR/VR Karan Singh Inspired and adapted from material by Mark Billinghurst What is this course about? Fundamentals