System

Take a look at this Science Daily article: "Machinists, numerical control programmers or mechatronics engineers -- trainees in engineering jobs often have to master complex equipment. In the future, trainees will practice and learn milling, turning, drilling and programming routines son a virtual model.

A trainee carefully clamps a workpiece in a lathe. He must program the machine correctly before he can machine the part. This is a tricky task and the trainee will have to solve a similar problem for his final exam.

This ScienceDaily article talks about the European research programme UNITE who took on the challenge of creating a virtual platform that would let groups across Europe share existing test equipment and protocols. From the article: "The systems that let you zap a photo to a friend, or an astronomer to control a telescope continents away, require intensive simulation and testing. European research has now made those key steps far easier.

Two years ago, the European research programme UNITE took on the challenge of creating a virtual testbed that IT developers across Europe could use easily and effectively to fine-tune new devices and services, and make sure that they will interact smoothly with existing systems.

Without an improved testing and simulation infrastructure, it will be extremely difficult to achieve the “network of wireless networks” that communications researchers envision and hope to create.

Christopher Bauder from WHITEvoid interactive art & design sent us information about their latest project: "The "Polygon Playground" is a large scale interactive lounge object. It offers room for up to 40 persons at a time to walk, sit and explore its multifaceted surfaces. Gradient ramps guide to the top plateau or offer space to sit and rest. The installation features a software aided 3D surface projection system to cover the object with a seamless 360 degree projection mapping. An additional sensory system detects peoples positions and proximity.

The visual appearance of the "Polygon Playground" changes continuously with the presence, movements and touches of its visitors. The object detects the positions and directions of people and reacts with evolving visual moods and graphic styles.

This research project's objective is to explore the use of the Wii Balance BoardTM as a low-cost input device in virtual reality (VR). A video is also available. From the project abstract: "In this work we explore the use of the Wii Balance BoardTM as a low-cost input device in virtual reality (VR). We combined and extended existing communication libraries such that the balance board's four separate pressure sensors can be used as input to a VR application. We provide a brief technical overview of obtaining and working with the sensor input. By processing the sudden and gradual changes in the sensor input values caused by pressing on the board, we are able to use the balance board for both discrete and continuous input.

This CrunchGear article talks about the Virtual-Eye High End Wearable Display Device (HEWDD-768) presented at the 16th Industrial Virtual Reality Expo in Tokyo. From the article: "Yesterday I attended the 16th Industrial Virtual Reality Expo in Tokyo to find some cool tech to cover for CrunchGear. However, a lot of what I saw was just boring stuff. Advanced maybe, but boring: motion capturing systems, VR games, 3D projectors etc.

One exception was the so-called “High End Wearable Display Device” HEWDD-768. The VR helmet has been around for a while now, but I was able to scrutinize the newest version of the product and shoot a video. The display was presented by Crescent [JP], a Tokyo-based technology company.

Sébastien Kuntz, from a VR Geek Blob, got the opportunity to try the Virtusphere. From his blog post: "A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to test the Virtusphere for two days and could since watch several beginners try this device.

The Virtusphere is a 2.6m polycarbonate sphere of 120kg lying on wheels, with an incredibly sophisticated movement detection device below (a mouse!), used as a virtual reality locomotion device.

You enter the sphere by a small hatch, and are instructed to take small steps first. So a small step you make, and the sphere starts to roll, and you make another step to keep balance, and .. you’re walking! During the first session you might even be able to run, and a lot of people did! Especially girls who generally perform better than guys.

This New Scientist Technology Blog post reports Christian Moore have developed an open-source framework (so-called Lux) which brings full multitouch interaction to Apple's OSX operating system. From the article: "Here's a video that's been doing the rounds on the web recently. Lux is an open-source framework developed by Christian Moore that brings full multitouch interaction to Apple's OSX operating system.

This oneighturbo.com article reports the German Chancellor and the Volkswagen Chairman opened the Volkswagen Virtual Reality Centre in Brazil. From the article: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel was given a warm welcome in the Brazilian city of São Bernardo do Campo by Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft, during her tour of South America. In the presence of other representatives from industry and politics, the two dignatories officially opened the Virtual Reality Centre, an innovation in vehicle development and the first of its kind in South America, at the VW site near São Paulo.

This Mechdyne press release reports the Texas Learning & Computation Center (TLC2) contracted with Mechdyne Corporation to design and build a 34-seat visualization theatre with 8 Megapixel (MP) stereographic projection. From the press release: "The new theater provides all of the academic departments of the University of Houston, as well as partners from the community and industry, with the ability to collaboratively view and work with complex data and computer generated imagery.

This macenstein article reports BOX FAB is working on a virtual reality head-mount which the iPhone clips into instantly become a networked, head-tracked, virtual worlds viewer. From the article: "Well, out of all the “guess what we’re gonna do” press releases to come from 3rd party developers following the iPhone SDK announcements, this one is certainly one of the most ambitious. BOX FAB has announced 3 crazy ideas it claims to have secured an “exclusive licensing award” for, the most controversial of which is: “a virtual reality head-mount which the iPhone clips into instantly become a networked, head-tracked, virtual worlds viewer”. Let’s see RIM do that!

Box Fab describes the Virtual reality display as: