OpenVR – 0 : Story

OpenVR – 1 : Hardware
OpenVR – 2 : Software

How I got interested in Oculus Rift?

I can’t say I’m a huge gamer. I do enjoy playing games though. But when it comes to innovative *HCI devices, I’m very enthusiastic. That’s how I got really curious about experience offered by Oculus Rift, a total new way to experience reality, in a virtual world.

Curiosity alone was not alone for me to buy a Rift though. So I postponed buying a Rift for some time.

I’m building and flying custom multicopters. I was using a monitor to display camera feed from my quadcopter. It is nowhere near as immersive as flying it with a video glass. So I realized I needed a video glass to fly it *FPV.

FPV glasses cost around 150-300 $ and the highest *FOV is only 40 degrees. Compare that with 110 degrees FOV of Oculus Rift and 300 $ price.

It would be plain stupid to invest in FPV glasses. So it was now clear that I needed a Rift. It could serve me as FPV glasses, Gaming Goggles and for all other cool things you can do with a Rift; like watching a 3D movie.

Maker’s Dilemma : Buy or Build?

As a maker, you’ve got two options to acquire a new gadget. You can just buy it, or you can build it from scratch!

In this case; I already had some research done on stereoscopic displays after my first interest in buying a Rift. So I already knew about some DIY projects on the subject; FOV2Go etc.

I knew how/where to get some basic components to further test the feasibility of building a Rift from scratch.

So I bought 2 of those aspheric lenses. I did first tests using display of my smart phone. I built a makeshift cardboard case to hold it all together. Display of my smart phone was a bit small, although it still was a great experience. There were a few stereoscopic games built for Android, most of which are developed for FOV2Go project.

That experience alone was enough to convince me; that building it would worth the time. So I started building it…

OpenVR with SGS2 as display

HCI : Human-Computer Interaction
FOV : Field of View
FPV : First Person View

Photos

 

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