Reading 05

 

The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XLII-2/W3, 2017 3D Virtual Reconstruction and Visualization of Complex Architectures, 1–3 March 2017, Nafplio, Greece. The authors (T. P. Kersten a*, F. Tschirschwitz a, S. Deggim of a HafenCity University Hamburg, Photogrammetry & Laser Scanning Lab, Überseeallee 16, D-20457 Hamburg, Germany - (Thomas.Kersten, Felix.Tschirschwitz, Simon.Deggim)@hcu-hamburg.de) keep a history of VR in Virtual Museums or “MR”. MR has been around longer than many would realise, the authors date it back to the 1990’s depending on your definition of MR, which they define as “a virtual museum is a * Corresponding author digital entity that draws on the characteristics of a museum, in order to complement, enhance, or augment the museum experience through personalization, interactivity and richness of content. Virtual museums can perform as the digital footprint of a physical museum or can act independently”. I find the authors study in MR to be paramount to Processing, understanding, and writing formally about the history of XR as without MR, there would be many a museum around the world simply missing experiences they rely on as whole exhibits, including the Smithsonian! The ability to step into an enhanced virtual museum is that of a historic importance, allowing users in the authors example to step into the Old Segeburg Town House of the 19th century, and all of its different builds throughout the years, an experience unlike any a regular museum could demonstrate to such effectiveness. (Themes: Augmented Reality is an effective teacher)

The Authors (Tomasz Mazuryk and Michael Gervautz Institute of Computer Graphics Vienna University of Technology, Austria [mazuryk|gervautz]@cg.tuwien.ac.at http://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/) comb through the history of VR through the aspects of applications and technology, as well as giving there insights on what could be possible in the future. The technology of the time is mentioned from Sensorama in 1960-1962 to todays’ AR features, then the study of the technology and how it has been made work over the years is dissected. I believe it is important to know how these old systems functioned, even if these systems are generally out of date or no longer in use in modern day headsets. Zeltzer’s Cube, the terms Telepresence, Temporal Resolution and many more. This helped me understand more how beacons, see through ability, built in camera’s and more became common place in VR headsets. (Themes: The technologies chronological evolution, previous models, challenges faced by AR and VR)

Pope. Introduction to Virtual and Augmented Reality. 2018. Article. 2022, demonstrates how many different technologies and years of research went into a technology that has been taken into a lot of everyday objects and slept on, Augmented Reality. The use of AR in games like Pokemon Go, Five Nights at Freddy’s AR and games such as Face Raiders on the Nintendo 3DS and the AR cards bundled in with these 3DS systems. The ability for users to introduce the ability to add virtual elements to the real world through complex camera operating, CPU and a powerful GPU is so commonplace now, even some last generation handheld console like the 3DS sport these features! Not to mention everyones favourite guilty pleasure when your board with your phone, face filters! Allowing users to add virtual dancing hotdogs to the real world is definitely what Morton Heilig would have wanted (The inventor of Sensorama). (Smartphones is the home of AR for some time now, The technology in your back pocket)

Light: Science & Applications, 2021, Volume 10, Number 1, Page 1

Jianghao Xiong, En-Lin Hsiang, Ziqian He, Tao Zhan, Shin-Tson Wu

The authors use data from the book Light: Science and Applcations, to talk about to what extent modern day technologies have advance the world of AR and VR with PHHOE's and LLHOES allowing more clearer crisp higher definition views into the Virtual World. (How VR and AR works - technically speaking)

 

Authors Tao Zhan Kun Yin, Jianghao Xiong, Ziqian He, Shin-Tson Wu from the

College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA produced a document available online 22 July 2020, Version of Record 3 August 2020 in which they explored the “Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Displays: Perspectives and Challenges”. In this article the authors analyse the requirements of the human visual system, to then analyse the requirements of a VR visual system. The monocular FOV of a human eye is about 160 degrees by 130 degrees, with the combined binocular FOV increasing to 200 degrees by 130 degrees. The problem for VR designers throughout history is the way in which we should see images in VR, creating a broad FOV with a low resolution allows the users to look around, but not be able to distinguish anything, meanwhile creating a screen with a high resolution to that of a human eye (around 8k resolution) has yielded results such as 4k resolution in some headsets, with major drawbacks such as the amount of processing power being required and also the steep cost of technology. It is for reasons like this earlier headsets were very low resolution technologies and did not try to take the human eye at full FOV or resolution. In 2010 however, Rossi, A. Roorda (The relationship between visual resolution and cone spacing in the human fovea) has made VR a lot more realistic and closer to a consumer-friendly cost as well as FOV and resolution. This is done via only making the central viewing zone a high resolution, as the fovea is where the most detail is brought in through the human eye. (How the technology works and how it has evolved (Technical)

 

Overview of “Virtual Reality Technologies Yuri Antonio Gonçalves Vilas Boas School of Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton Southampton, United Kingdom yavb1g12@soton.ac.uk “ – The authors examine some of the classics of Virtual Reality. The before mentioned Sensorama is documented, however I would like to focus on some other technologies of the times leading to today’s technology. “The Sword of Damocles” was a BOOM (Binocular Omni Orientation Monitor) that allowed users to track both the position of their eyes and the direction the user was looking. This revolutionary technology was, simply put, years ahead of its time. The Sword of Damocles had its processing computers hanging from a ceiling, since it was too bulky, and then a headset was placed on the user underneath connected via wires, hence earning its name based on the Greek story of sword being suspended above a kings throne by a hair. This technology pioneered many technologies for HMD’s (Head Mounted Displays) such as stereoscopic images, tracking systems, central viewing screens and it spawned more commercial forms of virtual reality peripherals such as wired gloves, leading to the inspiration for the Nintendo Power Glove.( Chronological Ordering of history of VR and AR)

 

 

Maryam Vafadar Department of Electronic, Sama technical and vocational training college, Islamic Azad University, Islamshahr Branch, Islamshahr, Iran’s article states that Virtual reality faced many real challenges in both the past and modern day. From technical challenges like instability of companies to the cultural challenges faced in VR, mainly at what point are users accountable for their actions in VR, if the crimes are virtual but the emotional trauma that can be inflicted is real. To real it back to more technical chellenges, throughout history the VR scene has always been a challenge in on itself. Massive work was done in VR technologies through out the 80’s and 90’s with Sensorama, The Sword of Damocles and other technologies aimed at the general public such as Nintendo’s Power Glove and the Nintendo Virtual Boy, however while technologically fascinating and strong blueprints for future AR and VR systems, they were mostly commercial flops or deemed to financially steep to continually invest in. The technology took a bit of a sleep through to the new 21st century, were advances were made in the 2010’s in VR with companies such as Oculus and Vive, and in AR with Nintendo in 2013 with release of the Nintendo 3DS, implementing on console standard AR games, AR capable camera and AR cards able to be scanned by the camera to display prominent Nintendo characters in the users real world. With the Oculus Quest and Pokemon Go, both respected technologies not only once again where in the business of evolving into modern day VR and AR technologies, they were once again in the general publics crosshairs, ending the years of XR near untouched state. (Challenges for VR and AR throughout history)

 

“Phenomenology, Pokémon Go, and Other Augmented Reality Games

A Study of a Life Among Digital Objects” by Nicola Liberati documents the recent opportunities in AR technology that have propelled it into modern day use. In recent history the world has seen a large evolution in AR, through Niantic’s Pokemon GO- The Pokemon Companies answer to AR in 2016. The app used the GPS and clock features of smartphones to pinpoint where in the world the user was located, then the app would continue to overlay digital creatures on the users smartphone using their camera, therefore making the character seem as though they were appearing before the user. Such a simple AR tactic was extremely well received as the game stayed in the relative App stores most downloaded app for many months proceeding the initial release. While there was a bit of controversy to the idea of the app in regards to data required to make the AR work (Access of location, time and camera features) the general public is well accustomed to AR since and only knows it better, on platforms such as Snapchat, Facebook, Google and more,. Not only does this see more potential for AR driven games in modern day such as FNAF AR, but it has also shown AR as a game genre can be just as big and successful as any other game on the market, making recent history. (The opportunities for VR and AR in history)

The military has been building on VR for years since this milestone, making VR military exercises the forefront of the technology. On a more entertainment based historic moment the Sensorama machine, a multi-sensory simulator, was created in 1957 and patented in 1962 by Morton Heilig. This machine included a pre-recorded film in color and stereo, was augmented by binaural sound, scent, wind and vibrations. The user would sit in the machines seat and peer his or her head forward, through which the user would see curved screen. The user would then simply watch the pre- recorded movie, when there was sound it would come in the direction of where it would come from in real life, this was done using an augmented sound system which allowed surround sound. The technology also blew wind in the users face, created and masked scents and had haptic feedback installed. Costing a steep place and not being able to find any investors, Heiligs dropped the sensorama and went on to pioneer invaluable feedback systems and more used in modern day VR.

 

 

 

 

 

Plan for paragraphs:

 

Chronological Ordering of history of VR and AR (2/2)

 

Challenges for VR and AR throughout history (2/2)

 

            Advantages and Disadvantages (?)

 

How the technology works and how it has evolved (Technical) (2/2)

 

The opportunities for VR and AR in history (1/2)

 

Where we see VR and AR in modern day and foreseeable future (1/2)

Comments