Week 1

Assignment 1

AR/VR Demo Reflections

In this week’s class, we got to demo and experience a lot of different types of (Virtual Reality) VR and (Augmented Reality) AR applications and each of them had its advantages and disadvantages.

common smart phone/tablet AR:

With a smart phone and or tablet we tested out two different application in the classroom. One was Quiver where we would get a picture sheet and color it into our liking. After we make the picture as colorful as possible, we then scan the QR code and the picture would turn 3d on the phone screen and would start moving and coming to life. Another application we looked at was Spacecraft AR where we got to select any part of the outer space experience and got to see it come to life in the room. One disadvantage that these applications have is that sometimes the 3d imaging starts to become unclear and hard to identify based on the distance between you and the general area the image is displaying at.

VIVE head mounted display - Google Earth:

With the VIVE we got to experience google earth picturing and mapping as we used the controllers to move between areas and our physical motion to turn and such. It was great being able to physically move to a new location on the map with our own movement and such and really immerse you into the experience. One disadvantage that came with it was that we were to immerse into the experience, and it becomes so overwhelming that the physical environment we are in starts to physically harm you by missing a chair and other things.

HoloLens:

With the HoloLens we got to example of an AR environment where we got to see a character whether it’s an astronaut or an elephant as well as interact with it through the motion control that lets you pick up and store things away. The disadvantage to this was that the characters were sometimes nonexistent and disappear from time to time. As well as interacting with the motion camera where it sometimes would not read the hand actions and end up from time to time picking up and dropping the book. This is better than the phone application because it constantly allows for more of an interactive experience then it would for a phone which is very limited in its capabilities.

CAVE2:

With the CAVE2 we got to experience a number of cool programs running across the EVL. One being the Mars project where they plot all the rover’s location and information, as well as a cool start wars game were, we got to interact with storm troopers and the millennium falcon. This was much different than the VIVE because we were enclosed or immersed in the traditional VR headset, instead we would move about without the full immersive experience as the VIVE.