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posted by on Sunday March 26 2017, @10:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the or-you-could-take-off-the-helmet dept.

We present a system enabling users to accurately catch a real ball while immersed in a virtual reality environment. We examine three visualizations: rendering a matching virtual ball, the predicted trajectory of the ball, and a target catching point lying on the predicted trajectory. In our demonstration system, we track the projectile motion of a ball as it is being tossed between users. Using Unscented Kalman Filtering, we generate predictive estimates of the ball's motion as it approaches the catcher. The predictive assistance visualizations effectively increases user's senses but can also alter the user's strategy in catching.

Full paper: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/disneyresearch/wp-content/uploads/20170316100633/Catching-a-Real-Ball-in-Virtual-Reality-Paper.pdf (PDF)

-- submitted from IRC


Original Submission

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Stickman is Disney's new headless acrobatic robot

The team at Disney Research never fails to deliver fascinating (if not always particularly useful) experiments. Take Stickman. The robot is essentially one long limb, capable of some cool acrobatic maneuvers.

The system, detailed in a new paper from DR titled "Towards a Human Scale Acrobatic Robotic," has two degrees of freedom and a pendulum it uses to launch itself in the air after swinging on a rope. The relatively simple robot tucks and folds, somersaulting in the air before landing on the padding below.

Those aerials are executed courtesy of a built-in laser range finder and six axis inertial measurement unit (a combination gyroscope/accelerometer), which calculate its position in-flight and adjust its positioning accordingly.

Also at IEEE (guest post written by Disney researcher Morgan Pope), The Verge, and Engadget.

Stickman: Towards a Human Scale Acrobatic Robot

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Catching a Real Ball in Virtual Reality


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @10:17PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @10:17PM (#484462)

    It could be a conflict, but would this same technology enable a porn starlet on web cam to catch a nut sent in her direction?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @11:38PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @11:38PM (#484470)

      He/she could kick balls, with haptic feedback.

  • (Score: 2) by jasassin on Sunday March 26 2017, @11:44PM

    by jasassin (3566) <jasassin@gmail.com> on Sunday March 26 2017, @11:44PM (#484474) Homepage Journal

    The 8 bit Nintendo and the power glove for the breakout type game after about 20 minutes I could feel the ball hitting my hand or catching and throwing it. The brain is weird.

    --
    jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @05:31AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @05:31AM (#484529)

    This research is why I think augmented vs virtual reality is somewhat of a nonstarter. Augmented reality is fundamentally a subset of virtual reality.

    Interestingly enough this whole issue even applies to the human brain and perception. A related article is 'The Evolutionary Argument against Reality' [quantamagazine.org]. Giving the tl/dr it's likely that our brain presents reality in a fashion that is more focused on optimization than the most accurate portrayal of reality possible. E.g. if it were easier to catch a ball when our perception of that event was framed in some way, such as in this example of visible trajectory being displayed, it would be possible for the brain to carry out such simulation itself and present it to us as reality. We would perceive that visible trajectory as being "real" but only because reality is essentially defined as how we perceive it to be. To think this has never once happened through the countless millenia of evolution that went into producing our brain is, I think, unreasonable. So what we see perceive as reality may likely already be a form of 'augmented reality.'

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @07:21AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @07:21AM (#484545)

    You can already catch real objects in VR. It's quite easy to catch the Vive controllers, for example.

    • (Score: 2) by rob_on_earth on Monday March 27 2017, @11:41AM (2 children)

      by rob_on_earth (5485) on Monday March 27 2017, @11:41AM (#484574) Homepage

      Exactly what I came to say. If you have never used the Vive this may seem fanciful. But when setting users up to use the Vive I always make sure the headset is comfortable and then tell them to take the controllers from me. They can always do this consistently because of the near perfect tracking.

      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 27 2017, @06:15PM (1 child)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday March 27 2017, @06:15PM (#484756)

        Something the summary said tweaked my interest: predictive modeling of where the ball will be - is this something that you can "tune" in Vive? Can the VR give you a "present" image (which would be somewhat predictive also) plus a "one second in the future" predictive ghost?

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
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