Scientists use a wireless Oculus Rift to replicate Star Trek holodeck
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Imagine stepping into a room where, at the touch of a button, you could visit any city on Earth, have any experience you wanted and do anything you wanted to do.
That's what was envisaged in the various series of Star Trek in the form of a holodeck, and now scientists are one step closer to making the fictional technology a reality.
Using an Oculus Rift headset and a room full of cameras, researchers have been able to partially simulate travelling to mysterious, virtual worlds.
The technology has been developed by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Science. In the demonstration (pictured) the participant, wearing a wireless Oculus Rift headset, 'sidles' her way through chairs on a virtual airplane and then sits down in a seat provided for her in the real world
OCULUS ENABLES TERMINALLY ILL GRANDMOTHER TO GO OUTDOORS
A terminally ill grandmother with cancer is using an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset to experience life outside a virtual Italian villa, from her armchair in Seattle.
The idea to use virtual reality to give Roberta Firstenberg an outdoor experience without leaving her home came from her granddaughter, Priscilla, who works as an artist designing video games.
She emailed Oculus about her idea and they sent her a headset, for free, for Roberta to use.
Before long, Roberta was walking through a virtual Tuscan villa, trying to catch butterflies and admiring the sunshine.
'Her favorite part was just being able to walk up and down the stairs again of the villa in the Tuscany demo,' said Priscilla.
'I guess we take a lot of things for granted.'
The technology has been developed by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Science.
To replicate the experience of being in a Star Trek holodeck, the team use a wireless virtual reality Oculus Rift headset.
This means their test subjects can walk around the room unhindered.
The researchers then set up multiple infrared cameras around the room, which communicate with the wireless headset.
The sides of the square room each measured 32 feet (10 metres), giving the subjects ample room to wander around.
According to the scientists each of the test subjects can be tracked down to millimetre precision.
In the Star Trek TV series and movies, people would often travel to far-flung locations, or places they enjoyed visiting, by entering the holodeck (pictured) and asking the computer to create a virtual world for them. They were then free to interact with the world as they saw fit
The Star-Trek inspired technology allows users to walk in a virtual room. The team used the homemade wireless headset with motion-sensing technology attached that was tracked by infrared cameras. This could track them to within a millimetre
On top of the headset are markers similar to those used for motion capture in movies.
The team can then give the user a virtual world within which they can walk around.
Unlike the actual holodeck in Star Trek, however, players cannot interact with their environment, leaving some of the subjects to reveal the experience feels slightly odd.
In the video shown, one of the subjects dons the headset and makes her way up and down the aisles of an airplane.
A seat is provided for her in the real world, which she can sidle towards and sit in.
The technology is still very much in its infancy, so there is no news yet if there will be attempts to create public locations that people can use, but for those who want to see the holodeck become a reality this is certainly a step in the right direction.
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