From: owner-3dui@hitl.washington.edu on behalf of Ernst Kruijff
[kruijff@fossi.uni-weimar.de]
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2000 10:58 AM
To: Doug Bowman
Cc: 3-D User Interaction Mailing List
Subject: RE: HighEnd HMD:s ???


...btw., Kaiser has very nice, very long cables - they are at least 25
foot. 

Ernst


> 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
> > --
> > 
> 

                        ernst kruijff (M.A.)
             teaching and research scientist
____________________________________________
.................bauhaus-universitaet weimar
.....................faculty of architecture
chair caad and architecture [prof.dr.donath]
............................d - 99421 weimar

.............fon/fax: +49 (0)3643 584282 /02
.........email: kruijff@archit.uni-weimar.de
......url: http://www.uni-weimar.de/~kruijff

............................guest researcher
.........Virtual Environments Group (IMK.VE)
............................GMD St. Augustin