GoPro's Virtual Reality Rig and Google Jump

GoPro just announced the release of Odyssey, which will work seamlessly with Google Jump.

....what?

So Google Jump is a hub for creating, sharing, and playing virtual reality videos. Google Jump will compose of three divisions, the camera and the rig, the software that patches the footage together, and the player to view all of the footage. The goal is to increase the use of virtual reality, especially through filmmaking. In theory, Jump will be able to be used with any off the shelf camera compiled into a 16 camera rig. 

When Google announced Jump, they also announced the first production rig for sale that would work with Jump, Go Pro's Odyssey. Odyssey will retail at $15,000 and an application must be submitted and approved before purchase. The Odyssey is a 3-D printed housing for 16 Go-Pro's that is pre configured to shoot video content to be worked through Jump. Google states that Odyssey will be the best tool for a filmmaker who is attempting to enter the virtual reality field but wants to avoid the DIY route. 

Below is a video that explains it in more detail:

Storytelling in Sword Art Online

My tastes in entertainment have changed a lot in the past year. There was a time in my life (a rough, rough time) when my preference in television was sitcoms like Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory. My interests have definitely broadened since then, and I’ve recently begun to take an interest in Anime. 

Since I began watching anime last semester, the most recent one I binged on has been my clear favorite. That show is Sword Art Online, a 25 episode show based off of a novel series written by Reki Kawahara. Sword Art Online is the story of two MMORPG players named Kirito and Asuna. Set in the year 2022, the show takes place in a virtual reality world in which players put on “nerve gear” that literally puts them into the game. The creator of this MMO ends up trapping the players in the game, and they have to play it to completion in order to escape back into the real world. Kirito and Asuna are two of the game’s strongest and best players, and they fight through the 100 levels to challenge the creator of the game, who is the final boss and the ticket back into the real world. In the two and a half or so years that they spend stuck in the game, Kirito and Asuna fall in love, and decide to fight to the end so that they can be together in the real world. When they finally do complete the game however, one of the creators of the nerve gear keeps Asuna trapped in the state of virtual reality and brings her into a new game that he has created. Kirito then must play this new game to defeat the deranged creator of Alfheim Online. It is an exciting, fast-moving story that kept me enthralled the entire time.

I watched this entire series in two days (roughly 30 hours). Having grown up a fan of Harry Potter, Runescape, Eragon, and other fantasy-fiction books/games, Sword Art Online was right up my alley. I couldn’t get enough of it, and I think that is due to quality of storytelling. Now I’ve never seen myself as much of a writer, whether it be for television/movies, short stories, or anything else. This is because my storytelling skills are lacking; I can have an interest idea, but I really suck at expressing it in an entertaining way. I liked this series so much because the story was so relatable to my childhood interests. It had the right balance of action, character development, and general humor/entertainment to keep me hungry for more the entire way through. I know that as I try out my talents in writing this summer (which I think will be fun, hopefully it doesn’t turn out a mess),I will look to Sword Art Online as a guide for developing the plot and characters in an interesting way.

Illusions in virtual reality

While reading Tufte I remembered a documentary I saw sometime back on brain research using virtual reality. Posting two links:


http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/07/virtual_reality_illusions_produce_out-of-body_experiences_in.php


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6960612.stm


It is really interesting how a person was fooled in believing that his body was located somewhere else. How we feel that our "self" is located "behind" the eyes- like a first person shooter mode in a computer game :)

Change the camera position and the brain can be fooled about the location of the body. I would surely like to play a computer game where I am really "in" the game!

AR, VR, MAR, MVR, ISMAR and other acronyms

ISMAR 2009 was a mixed bag, some awesome talks and demonstrations and on the other hand very few vendor kiosks with disappointing demos that looked more like 2001. Yes, some AR headgear was almost tolerable but with poor image quality (basically little low-res tv's hung in front of your eyes). Although there are already working prototypes of retinal projection none was available, and this is the technology which I believe will be both less intrusive (almost ubiquitous) and at the same time totally invasive with a direct path to your brain.

I think that all head worn displays suffer from an extreme case of risk-aversion, incrementing oh so slowly, sensors and devices that are already mainstream, like accelerometers, magnetic compasses etc. They need a serious garage-shock! anybody there?

The conferences, on the other hand, were fabulous. It was hard to choose which one to attend, but we stayed with the Arts&Humanities chapter most of the time, except when some very well known presenters gave their demos, like Pattie Maes from MIT wearable computing lab which demonstrated the "SixthSense""a device developed by Pranav Mistry that we had already seen in a TED video, or the HitLab guys from New Zealand with which we had very interesting conversations about their various tools and projects. We also found out that they are already working very closely with UF's department of Engineering.

Augmented Reality (AR) Joiner series, Waterfall - Outdoors from Augmented Stories on Vimeo.

And talking about projects, I was really impressed by Helen Papagiannis from York University in Toronto. She presented work utilizing marker tracking with a custom library created at their Augmented Reality Lab in the Department of Film. This was the first time that I have seen a truly creative an original work which has gone beyond technology and in the process of becoming a new language, a new form that she might not even be aware of. I am sure we will hear more from her in the future. The video above is only a small taste. But in a shorter term she agreed to make a virtual presentation to our class, just need to coordinate times! Very exciting.

Natasha Tsakos as ZERO

The other high point for me was the presence of Natasha Tsakos, whose work we have also seen in class. She too agreed to visit us online. It was nice to see her after almost seven years, from a theater student to a full fledged international performer and media star. We had a chance to talk about the ethics of technology and our responsibility as technoartists in this world and time that will be crucial to our survival as a species, not to mention other life forms that we are decimating as we boldly go where no one has been before.

Our presentation of the virtual alien controlled real-time from Digital Worlds was a smashing success. Eyes and mouths open, plenty of smiles and excitement. To be honest I myself was surprised of the enthusiastic response, being a very techie and sophisticated audience. That made me realize that we are on the right place at the right time...! Using an Open Source game engine running code by Anton Yudi and my 3D character and environment we were able to advance a few steps towards physical-virtual avatar control. Still a long way to go to be completely untethered.

Jarrel Pair, the organizer who introduced us, said we had taken a great risk by presenting something live, in real-time and involving so many variables. In reality it was nerve wrecking! Internet connectivity via ethernet, which we needed because wireless was so spotty, was non existent until about 4 minutes before our group began (we were 3 presenters in a panel). But once we started everything went absolutely smooth, even beyond our expectations.

Pictures coming soon...

VR, Char Davies, and Osmose

After reading the chapter on Char Davies and her VR installation called "Osmose" in our text, I was very interested in the idea of having the participant use their breathing as an intuitive way of interfacing with the technology. Perhaps by having such an organic method of controlling their movements, immersants could place themselves in a right-brain mode, evidenced by reportedly losing track of time, an inability to speak or describe their experience, and a different sense of spacial awareness. I found myself wishing to experience that which was described, something that could be thought of as Morton Heilig's fitting definition of Art, a "transfer of consciousness."

The Maps of Our Time

In 1748, Giambattista Nolli, made one of the most accurate ichnographic (ground plan) maps of Rome, the Pianta Grande di Roma commonly known as the Nolli Map.

Pope Benedict XIV commissioned the map in order to survey Rome, and ever since then this map has been used for government planning as recently as 1970!

You can see an "interactive" Nolli map here.

“…And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!”
“Have you used it much?” I inquired.
“It has never been spread out, yet,” said Mein Herr: “the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well…”

— Lewis Carroll. The complete Sylvie and Bruno. 1893. San Francisco: Mercury House, c1991. pg. 265

In 2006, the SENSEable city lab at MIT created many Real-Time Rome maps as its contribution to the Venice Biennale

The map below shows the movement and concentration of mobile phone users during important events in the city of Rome. In this case the events happen to be the controversial Madonna concert and the World Cup final between Italy and France.

See a big version of this movie here where you can actually see the timeline.

Tired of Reality?

Stanford University is announcing a 2 week intensive training institute on immersive virtual reality. From September 8 to September 19 they will train you in the design and programming of virtual reality worlds.

The faculty is composed, among others by researcher Jeremy Bailenson, currently the director of Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab, whose work in the field of cognitive psychology, telepresence and virtual environments, (funded by the National Science Foundation) is highly recognized.

In the The Avatar's Influence, The Chronicle of Higher Education
- What people do in virtual reality doesn't always stay in virtual reality he argues, and makes an excellent and compelling case that virtual representations of professors can be more effective than the real thing.

In Transformed Social Interaction in Immersive Virtual Reality Jeremy Bailenson discusses VHIL research projects in an extraordinary and fast paced Metaverse U presentation . I will try to show this in class because I think it will open (or close, there is always that possibility) a few eyes and raise awareness of what we have already discussed earlier in the class, that being as we are in the midst of a paradigm shift, it is difficult, sometimes impossible to perceive what is right in front of our eyes. Sometimes because it is very skilfully disguised.

Bailenson's main area of interest is the phenomenon of digital human representation, especially in the context of immersive virtual reality. He explores the manner in which people are able to represent themselves when the physical constraints of body and veridically-rendered behaviors are removed. Furthermore, he designs and studies collaborative virtual reality systems that allow physically remote individuals to meet in virtual space, and explores the manner in which these systems change the nature of verbal and nonverbal interaction.

You can apply at http://vhil.stanford.edu