Using Oculus Rift with your Web Browser for Science
Sandy Ressler
National Institute of Standards and Technology
SIGGRAPH, BOF, 2015
https://slides.com/sressler/oculuswebsiggraph2015/
Agenda
- A little VR background quickie
- Integrating the Web
- Examples and Uses
- Issues/Problems
- To the Future!
Disclaimer: Any mention of commercial products is for illustrative purposes and does not constitute and endorsement by NIST
A Little VR Background
Lawnmower Man
Jaron Lanier
VPL
NASA
What happened to VR?
- Expensive
- User interface (sickness) issues
- Ahead of its time
Virtual Reality 2.0
- Very inexpensive
- Moore's law caught up..it works!
- VR/AR/MR
- Immersive
- Can work with the Web
- Ubiquitous (thanks to WebGL)
- That VIDEO stuff
Now result of google search brings up lots of stuff to buy
It's Facebook's Fault
Purchase of Oculus for $2B got lots of people very excited
What's the BIG Win?
Integrating with the Web
The Big Win Using the Web
It's about the tools!
Ubiquity is the game.
WebGL is everywhere
VR is Universal
@oculus via cfriend11
Web based
- Ubiquity means BILLIONS of people
- Desktop rapidly giving way to Mobile
- Web-based provides smoother path to Mobile
Declarative VS. Imperative
- imperative: how to draw
- declarative: what to draw
- natural fit for <web></web>
Declarative VR
- <scene>
- <stereo projection='360x60">
- <headtracking type='HMD'>
- <navigation type='mouse | leap'>
Enables the use of Web development infrastructure for graphic applications.
This is A BIG DEAL!!
Jsbin is a JavaScript debugger - use it here for graphics!
Examples and Uses
Virtual Objects & Environments
- good ole' fashioned CG but with stereo and/or interactivity
- annotations (or other metadata)
- virtual walkthroughs (sequence of viewpoints)
- Objects and environments difficult or impossible to visit (they don't exist yet)
CSIRO Insect 3D
http://www2.ala.org.au/chuong/
Equipment (STMhead before it existed)
Microscope Facility (pre-construction)
Using Oculus with X3DOM - Facility
360 degree immersive videos
From CAVE to the Web
- http://math.nist.gov/~SRessler/RF/walk50.xhtml
Matterport - Mass market real estate
Scientific Visualization
Issues & Problems
Going Blind
- You put the HMD on and the world (including your keyboard and mouse) disappear
- solution other devices (Leap): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntB34kSNg18
Leap for input while in VR env
Be Happy
To the Future!
Inexpensive
Ubiquitous
-
Part of the WTF (What's the Future) economy
- Virtual Travel
- Guided virtually there tours
- Personalized virtual science lessons
- read: breakingsmart (Venkatesh Rao)
- smart ass kids can disrupt economies i.e. Palmer Luckey & Oculus
The End
Thanks for coming!
Sutherland’s Sword of Damocles, as worn by University of Utah student Donald Vickers
Using Oculus Rift with your Web Browser for Science
By Sandy Ressler
Using Oculus Rift with your Web Browser for Science
for SIGGRAPH 2015 BOF
