Over the last handful of years, processing power in computers and game consoles available to most consumers has increased to a point that development of virtual reality technologies has become economically feasible. Two technologies that have emerged as important in the development of virtual reality are the Oculus Rift and Microsoft Kinect. The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset that gives a stereoscopic three-dimensional image to the user. Additionally, it also tracks all head movements, from rotational to positional. The Microsoft Kinect is a visual tracker of user's body movements. It has been deployed with the Xbox 360 and Xbox One as an answer to Nintendo's Wii and Sony's PlayStation Move motion tracking systems. These two technologies stand poised to not only reinvent video gaming, but to shake up many fields of business and science. The technologies together will revolutionize the human-machine interface, and drastically change the way that people interact with computers and one another.
Introducing the two technologies is important to understand their potential. The Rift was primarily developed by Oculus to enhance the video game player's immersion into their game. Immersion, in a virtual reality context, is defined as the perception of being physically present in a non-physical world, often accomplished by surrounding a user with stimuli. These stimuli are usually audiovisual and provide an encompassing environment (Adams). The Rift starts by placing a headset over a user's eyes that has one screen that displays two similar images to a user's eyes creating a stereoscopic three-dimensional image that accurately depicts the virtual environment that the user is a "part" of. The user can see depth and distance in a realistic manner, and by pairing it with a reasonably able set of headphones, the user can get positional audio as well. These two factors combined fully immerse the player into the virtual environment that they want to be part of. In addition to this audiovisual immersion, the Rift also tracks the user's head movements, both rotational and positional. This adds a physical component to the audiovisual immersion, meaning that the user can actually turn their heads and move it about in the context of the three dimensional space they occupy in the virtual environment. The Rift was originally launched in August of 2012 as a Kickstarter campaign by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey. The Rift's Kickstarter campaign exceeded its quarter million dollar goal in under twenty-four hours and went on to raise nearly ten times that, finishing up at just over $2.4 million (Luckey). The Rift pays careful attention to the natural structure and limitations of the human eye to minimize fatigue and motion sickness. It also attempts to minimize "sim sickness" by having very high screen refresh rates, so that the frames are imperceptible to the eye, resulting in fluid visuals to the user. The Rift also has relatively high hardware requirements due to the sheer horsepower needed to maintain those high refresh rates. For the Rift's 2160 by 1200 pixel screen, at its native 90 Hertz setting, the screen is redrawn 90 times per second, which is almost 400 million pixels being drawn per second. This requirement, needed to avoid the worst of the motion sickness that can occur with inconsistent frame rates, necessitates a high caliber graphics processing unit, as well as a strong central processing unit to accommodate the overhead for the Rift. Oculus has established a base requirement of an Nvidia GTX 970 or an AMD 290, both near the top of the line as graphics cards go, and an Intel i5-4590, which is also near the top of the line of CPUs (Binstock).
The other big technology for creating immersive environments is the Microsoft Kinect, which completes the physical immersion. The Kinect was developed by Microsoft to compete with the motion controllers of Nintendo's Wii and Sony's PlayStation Move. The characteristic that set Microsoft's system apart was that it did not require a special controller to be held by the user. The device was a set-top box that broadcasts an infrared laser grid to track the user's body movements. The first Kinect was launched in 2010 and was bundled with certain Xbox 360 consoles. It was later revised and launched alongside the new Xbox 360 Slim. A fully remastered Kinect was released with the Xbox One in 2013 (Walker). The Kinect's ability to track users' bodies without a controller was a major difference that set it apart from its competition, which required motion tracked controllers to send the appropriate position data to the game console. By removing the need for a discreet piece of hardware to be in hand when using motion tracking software, the Kinect enabled a huge boost to immersion. By using one's body as a controller, the user is actually, physically, moving their bodies in a manner congruous to the movement of an avatar, or digital representation, on-screen. The first generation of Kinects were fairly low power to minimize their impact on the limited computing capacity of the Xbox 360, and were almost completely revamped for the Xbox One pairing. This came in the form of higher resolution and frame rate cameras to more accurately track user motions ("Protocol Documentation").
The combination of these two technologies can allow for incredibly intuitive and immersive experience in many fields. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is developing a pairing of the Oculus Rift and Microsoft Kinect as a method of human interface for remotely operating robots. The ability to look at the whole "scene from a human-like perspective" where "all visual input is mapped to where your limbs are in the real world," says Alex Menzies, a Human Interfaces engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Lee). This combination of a natural visual field and an input mapped to the user's real life limbs creates a sense of immersion that allows intuitive and incredibly precise manipulation of the remote robot. By creating this control scheme, it is easy to pass commands to the other side. However, latency is a huge concern for remotely operating robots that could be as far away as Mars. Thus, this interface is primarily to create a set of objectives for the robot being controlled and then sending that string of objectives to the robot for execution. This immersive control plan allows a much more confident and aware environment for a user to make commands. The operator no longer has to awkwardly try to overcome some perspective difference, and instead allows them to utilize their own body layout to pass objectives, even if the robot on the other end is not quite laid out in a humanoid fashion (Lee).
The primary objective for both of these devices was to change the ways that video games are played and experienced. The Kinect's objective was to win over an audience to which casual games appeal. The Rift, on the other hand, was developed with a particular set of gaming enthusiasts in mind. Since the Kickstarter for the Rift was such a huge success, and the two development kits have launched, the interest in virtual reality headsets has spiked dramatically. This is particularly noticeable since Facebook purchased Oculus in 2014 for more than $2 billion (Sherr). Another telltale sign of the Rift's increasing popularity is their increased presence at gaming conventions, such as the Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, in Las Vegas in 2015. Oculus set up a two story booth that included several demonstration areas for convention goers to experience the Rift. In 2012, Oculus had no booth or kiosk at CES, and was doing a limited number of demonstrations in an interview room nearby (Oculus VR).
The Human Interfaces department of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory hope to develop this technology so that it may be employed to control robots to perform "tasks that are too boring, too menial, or even too dangerous for an astronaut." There are already a handful of humanoid robots onboard the International Space Station, dubbed Robonauts, which are prime candidates for these kinds of control methods. These robotic astronauts can potentially perform extravehicular activities that would take too long or be too dangerous for their human counterparts to undertake. By utilizing an immersive control scheme like that of the Rift-Kinect combination, astronauts on board the International Space Station could still directly control the mission, from the safety of the space station, where they will avoid the risks of an extended extra vehicular activity (Lee).
Another use that is under development for virtual reality headsets, that is, Oculus Rift-type devices, is for architectural and design visualization. Some architects have begun experimenting with creating their designs in a one to one scale three-dimensional environment that is fully explorable by someone using a virtual reality headset. This is a boon for architects and designers in many ways. Architects can use this as a tool to see their designs in a realistic amount of space without having to mock up a full-scale model. They can fully explore the "finished product" in full scale for a very low cost compared to constructing a full-scale model (Graham). IVR Nation, a 3D imaging company based in London, has created a demonstration of the capability of virtual reality's impact on the field. It created a model home in Unreal Engine 4, an engine typically used for video game production. The end result allows users to go through and instantaneously "change materials for the walls, the floor, and the position of lights" and so on. This ability to experiment with all these options means that both designers and clients can make very informed decisions as to what the end product will look like and what decisions they want to make along the way (Graham).
By enabling architects to fine tune their designs by exploring them in full-scale once a change has been made, the workflow can be dramatically accelerated. When clients want to see how the project is coming, the architect can place them in the simulation so that they too can fully explore their new structure. While they explore, they can talk to the architect about what they like or dislike, and what they want to change, while previewing all types of options for lights and materials while in the simulator. This kind of power and flexibility will allow the client to see the finished product before ground is broken. By previewing every facet of the design, both the client and designer can ensure that both parties are completely satisfied with the way the project will come out. The ability to see what you will get before you get it is a potential game changer for architecture (Graham).
Another revolutionary use for headset VR systems is in medicine. Fondation Moveo, a French organization dedicated to increasing the use of modern technologies in medicine, has begun filming surgical procedures in three dimensions to help educate the next generation of doctors and surgeons. This is accomplished by using a pair of wide angle cameras mounted on the surgeon's head to record their field of view. This dual channel video is then converted into a stereoscopic video. Students can then don an Oculus Rift and observe the procedure from start to finish from the surgeon's perspective. Not only do they see what the surgeon is working on, but they also have the ability to look around at the operating theatre to observe all the other personnel that are working to properly execute the procedure ("Fondation Moveo"). This stands as a pivotal piece of technology not only in that students have an unblocked and unfiltered view of an operation, but they also then have the power to pause, rewind, and rewatch any part of the operation as many times as they like. They can either focus on the same part many times, or watch many parts one time. The freedom to review the procedure, and any part of it, at will, serves as an invaluable tool for students ("Fondation Moveo").
A third developing use for virtual reality is psychological. In the past several years, there has been a massive interest in pursuing virtual reality as a tool for psychotherapy. Psychologists and psychiatrists are beginning research that suggests that virtual reality could be used to create experiences for patients to help them overcome many psychological maladies. These experiences, due to the very nature of virtual reality, will not just be simulations, but will be actual experiences for patients. When guided carefully by a doctor, these sessions have massive potential to heal (Weddle). One prime area where this technology has already shown massive impact is in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, particularly in soldiers and veterans. Albert Rizzo has been using virtual reality to conduct "exposure therapy" on PTSD patients and patients suffering from anxiety, phobias, or addiction. This type of treatment works by exposing patients to those situations that cause distress so that they can confront and process emotions that are triggered. Rizzo has been using virtual reality to place patients into "controlled traumatic situations, including a simulated battlefield" that allowed them to acknowledge and address the emotions that they experienced. His results out of a control group showed that eighty percent of patients showed "a reduction in symptoms [extending at least] through a three-month checkup" (Iozzio).
Pilots have also been keeping an eye on virtual reality's development, as it could allow for vastly cheaper simulators. Presently, the most accurate way to simulate an aircraft's flight is to construct complex, expensive and aircraft-specific simulators. The Rift lets pilots, students, or enthusiasts, get "into" a fully modeled aircraft flight deck and look around it in full scale. The Rift's ability to track where a user's head actually is allows a user to learn where all the controls and readouts are on a control panel without needing to necessarily fly in an aircraft or an expensive simulator specifically modeling a particular airframe (Pope).
Another way that the Rift is used in flight related work is, by one intrepid Reddit user, to take the device and a simple cockpit simulator to local assisted living homes to allow seniors some time to fly. He takes special joy from veterans who were pilots that can fly again after being grounded for so long. The simulator has simplified controls, and the senior users have a simple time picking it up and enjoying their flights (Kastrenakes).
A final innovative way for the Kinect and Rift to work in unison is in virtual reality socializing. AltspaceVR is a platform where people can connect to social spaces where they can interact socially, in virtual reality. It is a fairly limited offering at present, with opportunity to watch videos or Netflix with others, or play tabletop games, like chess or Dungeons and Dragons. This virtual social space enables "face-to-face" interactions between people that are thousands of miles apart in a way that even video calling does not allow. When paired with a Kinect, users can control their virtual arms to make presentations and gesture in a way that allows even more depth to communication in a virtual setting. AltspaceVR seeks to create a social platform for virtual reality (Roettgers).
Virtual reality technologies stand ready to revolutionize hundreds of aspects of business and personal life. The impact that this will have on changing the way that people view and interact with one another and their environments is hard to overstate. From remotely operating robots to do complex tasks in a simple and intuitive way, to helping people with very real psychological ailments, virtual reality can make a gargantuan difference in the world. The fact that technology is finally moving far enough forward that virtual reality is becoming feasible on a consumer-level budget means that the technology will flourish and become very fleshed out very rapidly.
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