Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Welcome to 14:332:376 Virtual Reality and 16:332:571 Virtual Reality Technology Spring 2012 Grigore C. Burdea Ph.D. Professor burdea@jove.rutgers.edu Director, Tele-Rehabilitation Institute http://www.ti.rutgers.edu

Class web site: https://sakai.rutgers.edu/portal Textbook site: www.vrtechnology.org

Grading Criteria (376): Quizzes 20%, Midterm 40% Final 40% Attendance penalty – one letter grade lost for 4 absences. Midterm and Final are mandatory to pass Cheating is an automatic F. All exams and quizzes are closed books/notes/etc. Quizzes are announced. Laboratory assignments graded separately (for 378 – co req) TA Mr. Timothy Phan tsphan@scarletmail.rutgers.edu

Grading Criteria (571): Quizzes 10%, Midterm 25% Final 25% Laboratory 40% Attendance penalty – one letter grade lost for 4 absences. Midterm, Final and Laboratory Term Project Mandatory to pass. Quizzes announced, Cheating results in an F.

Textbook: Burdea and Coiffet, Virtual Reality Technology, 2nd Edition, Wiley, 2003

Textbook web site: www.vrtechnology.org

Textbook web site: www.vrtechnology.org

Laboratory Hardware

Virtual Reality - Introduction Updated class notes (PowerPoint) will be posted on the web https://sakai.rutgers.edu/portal Quiz and Exam Solution on Sakai Supplemental materials, surveys, links to companies and labs on the textbook site.

Topics

Introduction

What is Virtual Reality?

Introduction It is not augmented reality….

Introduction What is Virtual Reality? “A high-end user-computer interface that involves real-time simulation and interaction through multiple sensorial channels.” (vision, sound, touch, smell, taste)”

Introduction http://games.yahoo.com/braingames/brain-teasers-games/phantom-square-255

Sensorama Simulator, US Patent #3,050,870, 1962 Introduction Sensorama Simulator, US Patent #3,050,870, 1962

VR Short History 1963+ Ivan Sutherland's doctoral theses: SKETCHPAD: stereo HMD, position tracking, and a graphics engine. 1966+ Tom Furness: display systems for pilots; 1967+ Brooks developed force feedback GROPE system;

Introduction Ivan Sutherland’s HMD (1966+)

Introduction Brooks’s Grope Project (1977)

VR Short History 1977 Sandin and Sayre invent a bend-sensing glove 1979 Raab et al: Polhemus tracking system 1989 Jaron Lanier (VPL) coins the term virtual reality 1994 VR Society formed

Introduction NASA … a pioneer in VR The first complete system was developed by NASA “Virtual Visual Environmental Display” (VIVED early 80s; they prototyped the LCD HMD; Became “Virtual Interface Environment Workstation” (VIEW) 1989

Introduction NASA VIEW system (1992)

Introduction Large simulation and training needs; Why NASA? Large simulation and training needs; Could not send humans to other planets; Relatively small budgets.

Introduction Towards Commercialization… The first commercial VR systems appeared in the late 80s produced by VPL Co. (California): The VPL “Data Glove” and The VPL “Eye Phone” HMD

Introduction The VPL DataGlove (1987) cost $8,500

Introduction The Matel PowerGlove (1989)

The first commercial VR glove for entertainment – Mattel Power Glove $50 (1989)

Early HMDs were massive The Flight Helmet (ca. 1990) weighs 5 lbs

…and had poor resolution

Introduction Virtual Reality in the early 90s…. Emergence of first commercial Toolkits: WorldToolKit (Sense8 Co.); VCToolkit (Division Ltd., UK); Virtual Reality Toolkit VRT3 (Dimension Ltd./Superscape, UK); Cyberspace Developer Kit (Autodesk)

Introduction Superscape VRT3 Development System

Introduction Virtual Reality in the early 90s…. Emergence of first non-commercial toolkits: Rend386; Later Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML 1.0); Later still Java and Java 3D;

Introduction Successor is AVRIL ("A Virtual Reality Interface Library“) C library for authoring. Created at U. Waterloo, Canada ece.uwaterloo.ca/~broehl/avril.html Scene created with Rend386

Introduction Virtual Reality in the early 90s…. PC boards still very slow (7,000 – 35,000 polygons/sec); First turnkey VR system – Provision 100 (Division Ltd.) Emergence of faster graphics rendering architectures at UNC Chapel Hill: “Pixel Planes”; Later “Pixel Flow”;

Introduction Stride PC graphics accelerator 35,000 polygons/sec; $26,000 (with two co-processors)/card Require up to 6 PC slots for stereo version Stride PC graphics accelerator

Introduction Provision 100 VR turnkey system (Division Ltd., UK) 35,000 polygons/sec; $64,000 (including texture generator, tracker, 3-D audio, HMD and software) Provision 100 VR turnkey system (Division Ltd., UK)

Introduction ~ 1 Million triangles/sec; Pixel Planes 5 VR system (UNC)

Rendering speed comparison SGI vs. PCs xBox 360 500 Million poly/sec 2005

Laboratory VR Station prices (2002) PRODUCT Price/user % of Budget PC 1.7 GHz FireGL 2 accelerator 2,347 48 Polhemus 3D tracker 4 receivers 1,823 37 5DT sensing glove five-sensor version 482 10 Stereo Glasses wired 179 3 Force feedback Joystick 88 2 Java and Java3D - VRML Total 4,919 100

VR Market growth

The key elements of a conventional VR System

The key elements of a modern VR System