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Forget VR treadmills—Google patents motorized, omnidirectional VR sneakers
If virtual reality is ever going to become the immersive, holodeck-style platform that we all dream of, someone is going to have to figure out locomotion. Today, you can strap on a Vive or Oculus headset and more or less be visually transported to a virtual world, but the reality of, well, reality, means you can usually only take a few steps before you bump into your coffee table.
So far, we've seen a few solutions that take aim at VR's "limited space" problem. On the simpler side of the spectrum, one option has you stick a motion tracker in your pants and jog in place. On the more complicated end, there's the "VR treadmill" solution, which has you strap into a big plastic platform that keeps you in place with slippery footwear and a waist harness. Neither option is quite the same as natural walking, but a new patent from Google puts forth an interesting idea: what about motorized VR shoes?
The Virtuix Omni VR treadmill made us all hot and sweatyGoogle's patent describes what are essentially motorized VR roller skates that will let the user walk normally while the motors and wheels work to negate your natural locomotion and keep you inside the VR safe zone. As the patent puts it, Google's new kicks will let you walk "seemingly endlessly in the virtual environment" while keeping you in one spot in real life. Google's shoe solution would track the user's feet, just like how VR controllers are tracked today. The tracking would know when you're too close to the virtual walls of your VR area, and the system would wheel you back into place.
[...] This is just a patent and not a product, but we're still curious if Google can do this without the user falling over. Walking around in VR, where you are blind to the real world, is already a strange sensation that can mess with your balance. All the VR treadmills out there have a rigid waist support, in part to keep users upright if they stumble. Adding a set of wheels to the bottom of your shoes, which could start and stop unpredictably, may make staying upright a challenge. That said, if Google gets everything right, strapping on a pair of compact VR shoes sounds a lot easier than having to store a giant treadmill somewhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 27 2018, @12:39PM (7 children)
So, treadmills are already completely disorienting if you are running on them. For me, it was worse than spinning crazily on marry-go-around. The balance control is all wrong. And then you add VR? Holy fuck, either you need to have none of middle ear feedback left or you will die.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Tuesday November 27 2018, @12:50PM (4 children)
I wonder why it feels disorienting. Relative to the treadmill surface, your body is accelerating as you start to run, which should feel normal. If it's a flat surface, you shouldn't feel like you're tipping over or anything, and if you're running in a straight line your body shouldn't feel any rotation or sensation of spinning. If you haven't got a VR headset on, I can see that the visual cues of the background not following your motion could be disorienting, but the VR should make that better, not worse. About the only other thing I can think of is your skin might feel that the air isn't moving correctly with the treadmill, but that shouldn't feel much different to a very slight headwind.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 28 2018, @06:41AM
> About the only other thing I can think of is your skin might feel that the air isn't moving correctly with the treadmill, but that shouldn't feel much different to a very slight headwind.
I (idly) wonder if anyone's tried to put a spinning fan or some other air-blowing device in front of the treadmill. You could synchronize the blow strength with the treadmill speed.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Wednesday November 28 2018, @10:31PM (2 children)
The first problem is that your inner ear doesn't measure acceleration relative to the treadmill surface, it measures absolute acceleration. And your brain knows from a lifetime of experience just how much acceleration should be associated with all sorts of common motions. If it doesn't detect the right amount, then it can safely assume that something has gone very wrong.
The second problem is that the artificial acceleration is applied at your feet, which creates a torque around your center of mass that will tend to cause you to tip over. Same thing if it offers controlled slip to keep you more-or-less in place. When you start walking you automatically lean forward so that the torque from gravity trying to pull you over forward perfectly counteracts the torque from the acceleration of your legs, which would otherwise tip you over backward. Interfere with that by having your feet actually slide across the ground, and you'll start to fall forward whenever you walk, and fall backward when you stop.
Pay attention the next time you walk across ice and you'll see the effect in action - the big difference being that your eyes and your inner ear will agree as to what's really happening, and allow you to (hopefully) correct yourself. In VR your eyes will be seeing one thing, and your inner ear something completely different - and when they conflict, your brain (usually) goes with what your eyes are seeing, but complains loudly via motion sickness, to correct the probable poisoning that's interfering with your inner-ear function.
I'm sure you could learn to compensate - but it probably comes at the price of becoming less coordinated in the real world, since the mostly-subconscious behaviors required to not fall over in the two realms are very different.
(Score: 1) by DeVilla on Thursday November 29 2018, @04:07AM (1 child)
What do you think would happen if the ground you were standing on were moving underneath you? Traveling north or south must be a big challenge.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday November 29 2018, @04:21PM
Motion is irrelevant - only acceleration matters. And on a treadmill the connection between motion and acceleration is different than on land. Figure - you're on an inclined treadmill, so that your body has the same angle with respect to the "path" as it would on a real path. You're using inclination to fake the balancing of torques you'd experience traveling across level ground. But you can't fake the actual acceleration - instead of feet+gravity, you've only got gravity to work with. The orientation of the gravity vector may be perfect, but the magnitude is too low.
And that's while walking in a straight line at perfectly constant speed. As soon as you throw speed variation into the mix, everything goes out the window. Let's assume you have an ideal adaptive treadmill that adjusts instantly to your change in gait. So you're standing still, and then you start walking. Your head *should* accelerate forward - but it doesn't, because the treadmill is keeping you in place. That's a major "kick in the reflexes to avoid falling down" discrepancy. And the disorientation will potentially be even worse if your eyes are seeing the acceleration that your inner ear is not feeling.
Alternately, you could let the user actually move around a bit, so that they can feel the expected acceleration when they start and stop, and then return them to "center" later. In which case the return to center motion will be rightfully perceived as the ground moving underneath them. If you've ever walked across a suspension bridge in a high wind, or in a train or bus that was moving in a straight line, then you've experienced that effect at accelerations well below what a reasonably sized treadmill would have to impose.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday November 27 2018, @10:51PM (1 child)
It shouldn't feel disorienting; treadmills don't simulate sideways or curved movement, even the old models have adjustable speeds, and the vestibular system wouldn't be affected since the person only leans forward as much as they would when performing the same gait on the ground. Either you were on a very strange treadmill, or have something screwy with your middle ear.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday November 28 2018, @10:43PM
Not really. Try walking across the room with your eyes closed. Then try doing the same on a treadmill (no fair holding on). I bet you good money you'll find the two experiences qualitatively different.
The biggest thing is probably that any time you change speeds when walking normally, including every shift and bounce as you go through your gait, your inner ear knows what to expect. Walking on a treadmill you get zero net acceleration when "speeding up" or slowing down", and any slight adjustments in your gait has the opposite effect - at the extreme end, if you suddenly stop while standing on one leg, at a point in your stride when you should fall on your rear, you'll likely fall on your face if you're on a treadmill.