VR Goggles

SDL Development
1

Does sdl support VR goggles? Im not quite sure how they work but i was
thinking of trying to add support for them in my game. Something like
having it when you turn your head, it would be the equivelant of “mouse
look”.

2

does someone actually sell something like that??

ideally, it would be cool if someone sold a headset that plugged into a PS/2
port, and an SVGA port, then just became your monitor and mouse… man, i
want something like that…

well, thats all… its 10:15… bedtime :wink: man, thats early… o well

m@_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

3

Does sdl support VR goggles? Im not quite sure how they work but i was
thinking of trying to add support for them in my game. Something like
having it when you turn your head, it would be the equivelant of “mouse
look”.

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

(god, I hate MS Outlook’s reply style… Top-posting icky.)

Well, I think you’ll have to research how the VR goggles you’re looking for
work. Depending on whether they send mouse or joystick events, adjust your
code accordingly. I highly doubt a VR goggle would be under anything other
than a mouse or joystick… As for the display, I believe VR goggles
represent another screen (think multi-monitor setup).

  • KenFrom: atrix2@cox.net (atrix2)
    To:
    Sent: Monday, February 17, 2003 5:15 PM
    Subject: [SDL] VR Goggles
4

Psh - dang - am at work and don’t have any of my links - there’s quite a
number of products - even that run dual displays for true binocular
vision…
i-glasses, cy-visor …

best comparison chart (of current and historical displays )
http://www.stereo3d.com/hmd.htm

http://www.vrimmersions.com/hmd.htm

http://www.mindflux.com.au/products/index.html> ----- Original Message -----

From: madprog@hotmail.com (Matt Monson)
To:
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2003 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

does someone actually sell something like that??

ideally, it would be cool if someone sold a headset that plugged into a
PS/2
port, and an SVGA port, then just became your monitor and mouse… man, i
want something like that…

well, thats all… its 10:15… bedtime :wink: man, thats early… o well

m@

The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

5

sweet deal!

i wonder why VR goggles havent taken off…i mean theyve had the idea for
ages. I wonder if its because people cant see the keyboard to type while
they have the goggles on? newbies! (;

cool links, thanks> ----- Original Message -----

From: jim@fortunet.com (Jim)
To:
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 10:07 AM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

Psh - dang - am at work and don’t have any of my links - there’s quite a
number of products - even that run dual displays for true binocular
vision…
i-glasses, cy-visor …

http://www.vrealities.com/hmd.html

best comparison chart (of current and historical displays )
http://www.stereo3d.com/hmd.htm

http://www.vrimmersions.com/hmd.htm

http://www.mindflux.com.au/products/index.html

----- Original Message -----
From: “Matt Monson”
To:
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2003 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

does someone actually sell something like that??

ideally, it would be cool if someone sold a headset that plugged into a
PS/2
port, and an SVGA port, then just became your monitor and mouse… man,
i

want something like that…

well, thats all… its 10:15… bedtime :wink: man, thats early… o well

m@

The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

6

actualy i just realized why they have never taken off…they range in price
from 1000 to 3000$ geez!

might still be worth it though (:> ----- Original Message -----

From: @atrix2 (atrix2)
To:
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 10:21 AM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

sweet deal!

i wonder why VR goggles havent taken off…i mean theyve had the idea for
ages. I wonder if its because people cant see the keyboard to type while
they have the goggles on? newbies! (;

cool links, thanks

----- Original Message -----
From: “Jim”
To:
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 10:07 AM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

Psh - dang - am at work and don’t have any of my links - there’s quite a
number of products - even that run dual displays for true binocular
vision…
i-glasses, cy-visor …

http://www.vrealities.com/hmd.html

best comparison chart (of current and historical displays )
http://www.stereo3d.com/hmd.htm

http://www.vrimmersions.com/hmd.htm

http://www.mindflux.com.au/products/index.html

----- Original Message -----
From: “Matt Monson”
To:
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2003 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

does someone actually sell something like that??

ideally, it would be cool if someone sold a headset that plugged into
a

PS/2

port, and an SVGA port, then just became your monitor and mouse…
man,
i

want something like that…

well, thats all… its 10:15… bedtime :wink: man, thats early… o well

m@

The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

7

Probably because the whole binocular deal… It takes twice as much
rendering power… Now all we need to do is figure out how to have dual AGP
ports :-P> ----- Original Message -----

From: atrix2@cox.net (atrix2)
To:
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 1:21 PM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

sweet deal!

i wonder why VR goggles havent taken off…i mean theyve had the idea for
ages. I wonder if its because people cant see the keyboard to type while
they have the goggles on? newbies! (;

cool links, thanks

----- Original Message -----
From: “Jim”
To:
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 10:07 AM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

Psh - dang - am at work and don’t have any of my links - there’s quite a
number of products - even that run dual displays for true binocular
vision…
i-glasses, cy-visor …

http://www.vrealities.com/hmd.html

best comparison chart (of current and historical displays )
http://www.stereo3d.com/hmd.htm

http://www.vrimmersions.com/hmd.htm

http://www.mindflux.com.au/products/index.html

----- Original Message -----
From: “Matt Monson”
To:
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2003 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

does someone actually sell something like that??

ideally, it would be cool if someone sold a headset that plugged into
a

PS/2

port, and an SVGA port, then just became your monitor and mouse…
man,
i

want something like that…

well, thats all… its 10:15… bedtime :wink: man, thats early… o well

m@

The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

8

I believe (having worked for a VR company several years ago) that the reason
VR goggles have not taken off is because VR has not taken off. Heck, even
AR(augmented reality) is slow-moving, and this is where I could see goggles
going “mainstream”, but only as an upgrade to monocles.

Add to that, the fact that goggles are either “cheaply” constructed(read
"crappy"-feeling) or heavy(read anti-immersive) as well as being yet another
device to install, drivers and all, and usually not inexpensive for a "good"
set and you begin to see why they are still a fringe item.

Further, goggles tried to go mainstream at a time when VR was still in its
infancy and, for desktop systems, still painfully limited(read ultra-low
poly).

When someone comes up with a “killer app” that makes goggles accessible to
Everyman the same way that Atari/Nintendo made gaming accessible, you’ll see
an explosion of wearable displays.

Until then, they will remain the domain of the hobbyist.> ----- Original Message -----

From: atrix2@cox.net (atrix2)
To:
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 12:21 PM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

sweet deal!

i wonder why VR goggles havent taken off…i mean theyve had the idea for
ages. I wonder if its because people cant see the keyboard to type while
they have the goggles on? newbies! (;

cool links, thanks

----- Original Message -----
From: “Jim”
To:
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 10:07 AM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

Psh - dang - am at work and don’t have any of my links - there’s quite a
number of products - even that run dual displays for true binocular
vision…
i-glasses, cy-visor …

http://www.vrealities.com/hmd.html

best comparison chart (of current and historical displays )
http://www.stereo3d.com/hmd.htm

http://www.vrimmersions.com/hmd.htm

http://www.mindflux.com.au/products/index.html

----- Original Message -----
From: “Matt Monson”
To:
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2003 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

does someone actually sell something like that??

ideally, it would be cool if someone sold a headset that plugged into
a

PS/2

port, and an SVGA port, then just became your monitor and mouse…
man,
i

want something like that…

well, thats all… its 10:15… bedtime :wink: man, thats early… o well

m@

The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

9

sweet deal!

i wonder why VR goggles havent taken off…i mean theyve had the idea for
ages. I wonder if its because people cant see the keyboard to type while
they have the goggles on? newbies! (;

There are a lot of reasons why they haven’t caught on. The main one is
simply price. If you want to pay less than a $1000 USD for a pair you
get a resolution of around 263x230 pixels. So, it like living in block
world. On top of that most displays don’t include a head tracker so you
have to lay out another chunk of cash for that. And motion sensors are
not very accurate unless they actually tether you so you can’t move
around very much. Then there is the cost of VR gloves so that you can
interact with any thing. All in all, a lot of cash for a pretty poor
experience. If you want a GOOD VR system you can easily spend closer to
$100,000 USD than $1,000 USD.

OTOH, you can get a nice pair of red/green filter glasses for a few
cents and get a rock solid stereo on your current hardware. The color is
wrong, but the price is right.

For CHEAP full color stereo imagining there used to be a neat hood
called a cyberscope made by a company named simsalabim that sat over you
monitor and worked like an old stereopticon. You drew the stereo image
pairs on the left and right of the screen and the optics in the hood
presents them to your eyes so that you see full color stereo with
animation.

Or, you can use some form of shutter glasses, but they are still pretty
expensive.

Then there is the little mentioned problem of VR sickness. I for one
can’t play first person shooters because I get motion sick from them. A
LOT of people get motion sick in a true VR system because there is a
disconnect between what they see and what they feel. So, a surprising
number of people puke a few minutes into an immersive VR game.

But, you know… that last time there was a real push for VR was in the
early '90s when the PCs of the time could barely do the graphics needed
for VR. Now days, the graphics are pretty easy to do, so maybe now is a
good time to try again.

	Bob PendletonOn Tue, 2003-02-18 at 12:21, Atrix Wolfe wrote:

cool links, thanks

----- Original Message -----
From: “Jim”
To:
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 10:07 AM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

Psh - dang - am at work and don’t have any of my links - there’s quite a
number of products - even that run dual displays for true binocular
vision…
i-glasses, cy-visor …

http://www.vrealities.com/hmd.html

best comparison chart (of current and historical displays )
http://www.stereo3d.com/hmd.htm

http://www.vrimmersions.com/hmd.htm

http://www.mindflux.com.au/products/index.html

----- Original Message -----
From: “Matt Monson”
To:
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2003 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

does someone actually sell something like that??

ideally, it would be cool if someone sold a headset that plugged into a
PS/2
port, and an SVGA port, then just became your monitor and mouse… man,
i

want something like that…

well, thats all… its 10:15… bedtime :wink: man, thats early… o well

m@

The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl
–
±-----------------------------------+

10

Hi

Bob Pendleton wrote:

sweet deal!

i wonder why VR goggles havent taken off…i mean theyve had the idea for
ages. I wonder if its because people cant see the keyboard to type while
they have the goggles on? newbies! (;

There are a lot of reasons why they haven’t caught on. The main one is
simply price. If you want to pay less than a $1000 USD for a pair you
get a resolution of around 263x230 pixels. So, it like living in block
world. On top of that most displays don’t include a head tracker so you
have to lay out another chunk of cash for that. And motion sensors are
not very accurate unless they actually tether you so you can’t move
around very much. Then there is the cost of VR gloves so that you can
interact with any thing. All in all, a lot of cash for a pretty poor
experience. If you want a GOOD VR system you can easily spend closer to
$100,000 USD than $1,000 USD.

Sadly true, however there is a great book that details using cheap HW
with your computer, “The Virtual Reality Construction Kit” by Joe
Gradecki. It is out of print, but you can find it 2nd hand in “all good
booksellers”. So you can use your old Victor Maxx 3D goggles and Nintendo
Power Glove etc. It includes a floppy with dos software.

OTOH, you can get a nice pair of red/green filter glasses for a few
cents and get a rock solid stereo on your current hardware. The color is
wrong, but the price is right.

Do you have an links to how this has implemented before? I would like to
try something like this out with SDL.
(I was working on 3D voxel modeling with SDL previously)

Currently I can see the two different filter approaches:

  • anaglyph - blue and red one for each eye used for 2D photos in
    newspapers etc.
    (uses anaglyph images, limited to greyscale)

  • passive polarised filter, with left rotated 90 degrees? from the left
    one etc
    (I forget how we did this is A-Level Physics!) This seems the best
    approach, as it is used by Disney in Stormriders 3D ride, and also T2
    at Universal Studios. Requires stereo capable projector/display.

I have a couple of polarised glasses and the red/green filter type to
test ideas out on. I’m not sure how the anaglyph images are created, but it
would be very cool to test this with SDL!

Cheers

JG> On Tue, 2003-02-18 at 12:21, Atrix Wolfe wrote:

11

Hi

Bob Pendleton wrote:

sweet deal!

i wonder why VR goggles havent taken off…i mean theyve had the idea for
ages. I wonder if its because people cant see the keyboard to type while
they have the goggles on? newbies! (;

There are a lot of reasons why they haven’t caught on. The main one is
simply price. If you want to pay less than a $1000 USD for a pair you
get a resolution of around 263x230 pixels. So, it like living in block
world. On top of that most displays don’t include a head tracker so you
have to lay out another chunk of cash for that. And motion sensors are
not very accurate unless they actually tether you so you can’t move
around very much. Then there is the cost of VR gloves so that you can
interact with any thing. All in all, a lot of cash for a pretty poor
experience. If you want a GOOD VR system you can easily spend closer to
$100,000 USD than $1,000 USD.

Sadly true, however there is a great book that details using cheap HW
with your computer, “The Virtual Reality Construction Kit” by Joe
Gradecki. It is out of print, but you can find it 2nd hand in “all good
booksellers”. So you can use your old Victor Maxx 3D goggles and Nintendo
Power Glove etc. It includes a floppy with dos software.

I used to be a columnist in Joe’s magazine, PCVR. After the magazine
folded Joe gave me back the rights to my columns. Haven’t heard anything
from him for a LONG time. Anyone know what happened to him?

OTOH, you can get a nice pair of red/green filter glasses for a few
cents and get a rock solid stereo on your current hardware. The color is
wrong, but the price is right.

Do you have an links to how this has implemented before? I would like to
try something like this out with SDL.
(I was working on 3D voxel modeling with SDL previously)

Just render the two eye views one using pixel masking so that you only
modify the red and blue fields of each pixel. Essentially you treat an a
24 bit RGB pixel as being three 8 bit gray scale pixels. (Make sure that
the red value is always 0.) The Red component shows up on the through
the red filter and the blue component shows through the blue filter.
Works like a charm. We used to do this with an 8 bit frame buffer by
setting up the palette to treat the first 4 bits of a pixel as 16 levels
of red and the other 4 bits as 16 levels of blue. Kind of chunky, but it
works.

Currently I can see the two different filter approaches:

  • anaglyph - blue and red one for each eye used for 2D photos in
    newspapers etc.
    (uses anaglyph images, limited to greyscale)

  • passive polarised filter, with left rotated 90 degrees? from the left
    one etc
    (I forget how we did this is A-Level Physics!) This seems the best
    approach, as it is used by Disney in Stormriders 3D ride, and also T2
    at Universal Studios. Requires stereo capable projector/display.

The left is polarized at 90 degrees to the polarization of the right.
This approach makes very good full color 3d but it is hard to do with a
single monitor. You need two monitors, one for left and one for right,
and the optics to merge them. Works really well with projectors. You
have a left projector with a polarizing filter and a right projector
with a polarizing filter and you bounce the images from both off of a
single screen.On Tue, 2003-02-18 at 17:14, J. Grant wrote:

On Tue, 2003-02-18 at 12:21, Atrix Wolfe wrote:

I have a couple of polarised glasses and the red/green filter type to
test ideas out on. I’m not sure how the anaglyph images are created, but it
would be very cool to test this with SDL!

Cheers

JG

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl
–
±-----------------------------------+

12

Probably because the whole binocular deal… It takes twice as much
rendering power… Now all we need to do is figure out how to have dual AGP
ports :stuck_out_tongue:

3 letters A T I.

Probably find some good nvidia cards also, but ATI makes many more dual
headed adapters.>

----- Original Message -----
From: “Atrix Wolfe”
To:
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 1:21 PM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

sweet deal!

i wonder why VR goggles havent taken off…i mean theyve had the idea
for

ages. I wonder if its because people cant see the keyboard to type
while

they have the goggles on? newbies! (;

cool links, thanks

----- Original Message -----
From: “Jim” <@Jim>
To:
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 10:07 AM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

Psh - dang - am at work and don’t have any of my links - there’s quite
a

number of products - even that run dual displays for true binocular
vision…
i-glasses, cy-visor …

http://www.vrealities.com/hmd.html

best comparison chart (of current and historical displays )
http://www.stereo3d.com/hmd.htm

http://www.vrimmersions.com/hmd.htm

http://www.mindflux.com.au/products/index.html

----- Original Message -----
From: “Matt Monson”
To:
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2003 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

does someone actually sell something like that??

ideally, it would be cool if someone sold a headset that plugged
into
a

PS/2

port, and an SVGA port, then just became your monitor and mouse…
man,
i

want something like that…

well, thats all… its 10:15… bedtime :wink: man, thats early… o
well

m@

The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

13

I have a couple of polarised glasses and the red/green filter type to
test ideas out on. I’m not sure how the anaglyph images are created, but
it
would be very cool to test this with SDL!

That’s easy - just render the image twice over the top of itself with a
simple add. Since red/green or red/blue or even blue/green are independant
values, it’s easy to just add the RGB pixel components and get a result…
Now computation of the divergance of the image - well if you can show one 3d
image from a single point - just move the camera left a bit, draw, move the
camera right a bit, and draw again… I did that ages ago on some 286 maybe
386 computer I had… found it kinda annoying though - kinda only practical
for line vector drawings… There was a game once upon a time that actually
tried to do dot stereogram images - I can see most of those patterns - but
this game - I mean seeing the terrain texture was kinda nice - but you
totally lost the actual details of the game.>

Cheers

JG

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

14

i wonder why VR goggles havent taken off…i mean theyve had the idea

for

ages.

Two words, Virtual Boy :))–
Juan D. Espinoza

15

Probably because the whole binocular deal… It takes twice as much
rendering power… Now all we need to do is figure out how to have dual
AGP

ports :stuck_out_tongue:

3 letters A T I.

Probably find some good nvidia cards also, but ATI makes many more dual
headed adapters.

Err, that doesn’t solve the problem mentioned above; if you have binocular
output, it takes TWICE AS MUCH RENDERING POWER. Just because ATI (and yes,
nVidia cards too) have dual-head adapters doesn’t mean they can render twice
as much with little effort. It would effectively drop your frame rate in
half (no more FSAA or resolutions higher than 1024x768 at 32). The newest cards
assist in that, but what would be useful is if they ultimately made a
dual-GPU card.> >

----- Original Message -----
From: “Atrix Wolfe”
To:
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 1:21 PM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

sweet deal!

i wonder why VR goggles havent taken off…i mean theyve had the idea
for

ages. I wonder if its because people cant see the keyboard to type
while

they have the goggles on? newbies! (;

cool links, thanks

----- Original Message -----
From: “Jim”
To:
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 10:07 AM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

Psh - dang - am at work and don’t have any of my links - there’s
quite
a

number of products - even that run dual displays for true binocular
vision…
i-glasses, cy-visor …

http://www.vrealities.com/hmd.html

best comparison chart (of current and historical displays )
http://www.stereo3d.com/hmd.htm

http://www.vrimmersions.com/hmd.htm

http://www.mindflux.com.au/products/index.html

----- Original Message -----
From: “Matt Monson”
To:
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2003 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: [SDL] VR Goggles

does someone actually sell something like that??

ideally, it would be cool if someone sold a headset that plugged
into
a

PS/2

port, and an SVGA port, then just became your monitor and mouse…
man,
i

want something like that…

well, thats all… its 10:15… bedtime :wink: man, thats early… o
well

m@

The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl