From: owner-3dui@hitl.washington.edu on behalf of Doug Bowman
[bowman@vt.edu]
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2000 8:56 AM
To: 3-D User Interaction Mailing List
Subject: RE: HighEnd HMD:s ???

One note on the long cable issue: I got Virtual Research to
retrofit my V8 with a 20 foot cable (the longest they will
do). I can't find the pricing information right now, but
it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $300.

I needed to do this because I am using an Intersense IS-900
VET tracker which covers approx. 12x12 feet, but I couldn't
use all that space with the standard V8 cable length.

--Doug

--
Doug A. Bowman, Ph.D.          (540) 231-7537
Assistant Professor             bowman@vt.edu
Computer Science        www.cs.vt.edu/~bowman/
Virginia Tech 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-3dui@hitl.washington.edu
> [mailto:owner-3dui@hitl.washington.edu]On Behalf Of Andreas Simon
> Sent: Friday, October 27, 2000 8:20 AM
> To: Anders Backman
> Cc: 3-D User Interaction Mailing List
> Subject: Re: HighEnd HMD:s ???
> 
> 
> Anders Backman wrote:
> 
> > 
> > We have a Virtual Research VR8 HMD and want a better one.
> >  * Higher resolution
> >  * Better contrast
> >  * Longer cable?
> >  * Greater FOV
> > 
> 
> For the mid-range I feel that the VR8 is already pretty 
> reasonable, I liked it for its good all-round behavior 
> (for an HMD), so if you move up, be prepared to make some 
> tradeoffs. Getting better contrast is not trivial, longer 
> cable should not be an issue, in my experience you can 
> custom order (for a price). True, the significant nonlinear 
> distortion of the optics and (by today's standards) low res
> are its downfall. 
> 
> I was fortunate to use the nvis Datavisor 80 for a couple 
> of days when it came out and I was impressed. The 50% 
> overlap was a problem (small 40deg stereoscopic FOV as a 
> result, making it hard to use for direct interaction where 
> depth is critical, its task-dependent what you need, they 
> told me they can do 100deg total with 60deg stereoscopic 
> FOV, you have to talk to them about this). Optics are really 
> good for that kind of FOV, nice and flat image. The view 
> geometry is kinda peculiar, so if you see bad stereo in a 
> demo it is most certainly the software screwing up. 
> High-res 1280x1024 but its color field sequential, which 
> some people find disturbing and can be a problem for some 
> tasks. But well its heavy to the degree of beeing unusable 
> for normal people (i.e. non-military who are not used to 
> wearing helmets) for a reasonable amount of time (> 20min). 
> Use a balancing support to hang it from, but wait, then you 
> could use a BOOM ;-) . I dont have a quotation but in those 
> days it was USD 80k, and if you need it its worth it, if you 
> don't it will just sit there. Design is cool though. 
> 
> $0.02
> 
> Andreas
> -- 
> Andreas Simon     andreas.simon@gmd.de    02241 14 2838
> --
>