CS428 Virtual and Augmented Reality
Project 1
This is my unfinished project 1. Currently I implemented 4 widgets. You will be able to see current time and date. You will aslo be able to see temperature, humidity, wind speed and wind direction for the city of Chicago. All 4 widgets can be present at the same time and their display refreshes every 30s.
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Do you think these kinds of widgets would be popular in several years when people are regularly wearing AR glasses, and if so which ones (not necessarily the ones you implemented) you would like to have and where you would use them? If you do not think they are useful then why not?
I think those kinds of widgets would be the first ones to be implemented. We already are using our phones to check weather, time and date. If AR glasses became something like phones that people use everyday and take them with them everywhere, they go I definitely think things like temperature,
time and date would be good information to have on you. Especially time, temperature and maybe humidity would be displayed all the time so you can constantly check it. I also think it would be nice to have alarms set when temperature drops suddenly or raises. Same could be helpful for the humidity.
I could also see wind widget to be used if you need to do any wind related activity. As for weather, it would be invaluable to see if it is sunny, raining and so on but even more so to have alarms when it will suddenly change, if storm is coming or it will rain very soon. Since to get this information
right now you would have to check phone constantly which is pretty tedious. Will AR glasses that you are already wearing all the time makes it way easier to inform the user, the responsiveness is definitely the key here. The only two places I could think of I would use the widgets from are my home and
whenever I go outside. But I can also see how people could use them for work related tasks. Thinking about other widgets than the ones we used in project 1 I would be really interested to see a food widget. Basically, it would display closest restaurants/fast food chains and show you the menu alongside prices.
It would be really convenient if you could just walk around the street and be able to see multiple places you could eat at and what is available for what price without even walking to the place. It could even display information about carryout or delivery and support payments through scanning your card
with AR glasses. After order it would be great if you could see the timer when your order will be completed too with reminder upon completion. I think a lot of people would use such an app from home but predominantly when they are outside.
Project 2
This is my project 2 for CS 428 Virtual and Augmented Reality. In this project I created a playset of my room that has multiple elements as well as ambient sound, animation and vuforia button that changes the animation of my character smoothly. Another marker that has a real size physical desk on which I can shoot red balls and they respond to physics of the elements. I also have another scene which has a playset but in real size utilizing the ground marker.
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Do you think these kinds of play sets would be popular in several years when people are regularly wearing AR glasses, and do you think kids would want to literally interact with a figure that looks like them? How is it different seeing yourself as a small figure, and life size in AR?
I think that there is a very decent chance that those kinds of figures/apps would be new toys in the future. If the technology goes further in, I can imagine it would be very inexpensive to have access to that kind of program that can scan and display room/person. In that way kids could easily play around
it and try different fun things. I could also see it being used in making videos where you could have figures do what you want and make dubbing for them. It could be useful to make some short clips or even whole takes of specific scene. I would still consider the use of that kind of program as a toy or
educational tool. While wearing glasses I can only imagine how different it is to see the model of myself that is small compared to the real size one. The first one alongside the playset makes you feel like you are watching someone living their life from afar or makes you feel like a god dictating what
they should be doing. It reminds me very much of the game The Sims which has a very similar premise. Now in terms of the real size figure it definitely makes it feel like you are inside the room able to interact with objects and being able to look at yourself acting in virtual world. I think it creates some
sort of connection between the two of you. Since I like playing games, I could see that kind of app being used to create your avatar for games. I could imagine people being able to see real life size figure that they can customize, change hair style, color, clothes and so on. In that case it would be very
easy to notice changes and preview how the virtual you present across the board. You could also have different animations available to preview so you know how it looks like up close. I was also thinking of giving access to record your own animations and voice lines but I fear it would be impossible to force
people to keep it non racist/vulgar so probably a preset of those things would be ideal. I really think this app that would display character model in a room specifically could be best utilized as either toy for kids or as a program for creating your avatar for different platform.
Project 3
This is my unfinished project 3 for CS 428 Virtual and Augmented Reality. Simple classroom was provided and the job was to build on it. Player can interact with multiple of objects in VR, you can lift objects, move them and drop them down. All of them have physics and colliders alongside gravity. Player can also see few characters in the classroom all of which have different animation. User can also flip switches to turn on and off ligthing in the room. There is also sound coming from the phone that is made with 3D sound option to emulate real life sound fading if you get farther away from the source. All of the elements and classroom are in real life size to make it feel more realistic as if the player is actually inside the classroom.
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SOURCES
CHIPS
BACKPACK
SCHOOL SUPPLIES
COFFEE MUG
LAPTOP
CAMERA
SMARTPHONE
VENDING MACHINE
PHONE VIBRATION
Discussion on seeing and interacting with people and objects in a purely synthetic world, embodied at 1:1 scale.
The topic specifically asks for something that already exists to some extent, VR chat. I must say that being able to interact with people and objects is definitely appealing. There are a lot of positives that come along with it like cost of the objects within the
experience is basically zero dollars. Maybe being able to customize or choose specific avatar for yourself and not necessarily one that reflects your looks one to one. Not to mention that you can easily set up scenarios or situations on the snap of your finger.
For example, if I wanted to talk with people in a bar environment it would be fairly easy to switch background and not have to go physically to the place. Connecting with people would also be very easy especially in situations where you live afar from each other,
that way it would be simple to set up group meetings within minutes even with people across the globe. I think it would be cool if you could experience dangerous things in this way as well, stuff like skydiving. The price would be small and you could enjoy the
experience with multiple people and not worry about something going wrong. That could be applied to many other scenarios. Now, with all those positives there is also a lot of negatives that are rather very problematic. Even if you have the ability for all of that
experience and interaction you are still limited to virtual non-existent objects and settings. It is different thing lifting a cup in real life versus lifting it in VR. Same can be set for the experiences and backgrounds. Just because the place looks like bar in
VR doesn’t mean you would feel exactly if you were inside one. The same thing can be said for the skydiving experience. Nothing will really beat physicality you can experience in real world with your body. Despite that I still think there are few things you could
experience and technology wouldn’t be wasted. When you cannot meet physically, I think this would be a great alternative or if you were too afraid of experiencing specific scenarios that could be introduction or familiarization with it. For some it might be enough
to not want to experience the real thing. Another big problem I would have is what VR chat perfectly represents, people in internet just don’t behave like normal human beings. The technology would have to be restricted to private parties or have heavy
censoring/limitations so trolls and people who want to verbally abuse or commit any other crime cannot do that. Overall, I think being able to interact with people and objects can be great alternative for the real world but I don’t think it can ever replace the
physicality of the real thing.
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Elite Dangerous
LINKS:
Video
https://store.steampowered.com/app/359320/Elite_Dangerous/
https://thelatenightsession.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/elite-dangerous-navigation.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dp0Gmd0XoAYarie.jpg
https://i.redd.it/afg7mg24lp421.png