IMAX raised $50M to fund creation of VR experiences

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/285396/IMAX_raised_50_million_to_fund_creation_of_VR_experiences.php

by Impossible • 10 years ago

70 39 10 years ago

rudolf0• 10 years ago

I wonder what the killer app for VR will be. (I guess we also need the killer headset first, which is still yet to come.)

M_Grey• 10 years ago

Showing off real estate is probably going to be big... and once it's good, it'll become the standard for telepresence. Honestly, a few things need to happen, but when they do, the sky is the limit.

js_what_• 10 years ago

Having recently bought a house, I have to disagree. It _may_ help with initial screening but you don't actually get a feel for the structure until you are in it.

There's a lot of little details you are looking for that wouldn't show up unless it was an extremely high resolution. On top of that, you are looking for subtle sounds and movement as you walk through the house. You're seeing if the floor is sagging, does the paint show water damage under certain lighting, etc.

ngokevin3• 10 years ago

And it's already happening in production: https://aframe.io/blog/istaging/

Although today is mainly with 360-degree photos rather than real-time rendering or lightfields.

dharma1• 10 years ago

https://matterport.com/virtual-reality/

Qworg• 10 years ago

This is likely the current #1 use case of VR - particularly in China.

rckclmbr• 10 years ago

Have you tried BigScreen? It's pretty killer for co-working. Literally the only thing keeping it from being AMAZING is a higher res screen

mklim• 10 years ago

BigScreen is great. Relevant article about using it for coworking: https://medium.com/@ftarnogol/co-working-in-virtual-reality-...

Haven't used it for coworking personally, but it's been fun using it to watch tv and hang out with randoms. Just having the body language goes a huge way in making it feel like you're really in a room with the other person.

germinalphrase2• 10 years ago

I think bringing robust world simulation down to the level that teenagers can effectively explore and create/invent - without tangible constraints - will be important.

Bret Victor discussed his conception of this when he wrote about 'Seeing Spaces': http://s3.amazonaws.com/worrydream.com/SeeingSpaces/SeeingSp...

haydenlee• 10 years ago

Minecraft being the best example right?

foobarian• 10 years ago

Now that they can't even peek out a window without helicopter parents being terrified that some child molester will hurt them, or that the rest of us are terrified we'll get in trouble with the Gestaltpolizei if we let our kids roam, this will be the perfect way to let our kids experience what we had growing up.

</grumble>

santaclaus• 10 years ago

Probably porn

cloudjacker• 10 years ago

worked so well for HD DVD

where's the study of every technology the porn industry adopted that still failed

actually, don't do that study, I get all my investors by saying "historically porn has been a leading indicator of tech adoption, and look they're using it!"

ChuckMcM3• 10 years ago

Presumably "besides" porn.

Visualization is good, especially for people who don't naturally see things already in their mind's eye. For visually attuned thinkers I think its more a good way to achieve fidelity of a shared vision rather than to simply visualize something.

For example, someone is telling you a story that took place in a certain area in a certain orientation. You can quickly convey that in a virtual environment, harder to do verbally.

The other thing that I am hoping we'll get will be "unlimited resolution screens" which is to say that one will no longer be limited to what is on the one, two, or perhaps three screens in front of you, instead you can have screens above, around, even below you if you want with different bits of data on them. By freeing the organization of your windows from the frame of the monitor to being able to put them anywhere, you can achieve better data awareness.

legodt• 10 years ago

This is very crass and I apologize in advance if you do not wish to answer. But have you experienced VR porn? I am not ashamed to say that I have, albeit through non-dynamic fixed position video in a google cardboard video (think, split screen from two side-by-side cameras at a wide angle). The experience was rather unpleasant and disorienting, not much of a clear advantage over regular video porn beyond the fact that it takes up much more of your field of view.

In response to more important parts of your comment, the most exciting applications of shared visions and unlimited screens I feel will come through mixed and augmented reality. The sharing experience is much greater when you can also see the person you are interacting with rather than just an avatar. The visual speed of communication will need real, emotional anchors unless you are willing to trade nuance and subtlety for the speed of digital visual communication, which could have disastrous implications for how we communicate with one another. Infinite screens, though, better hope that higher density VR displays will keep coming and processing power will expand with that. Text and traditional interfaces are very difficult in VR right now since everything is sharing what is really a small amount of pixels for how much of your FoV they inhabit.

TeMPOraL• 10 years ago

Visualization is good, especially for people who don't naturally see things already in their mind's eye.

A tangent. I'm a person whose mind's eye has visualization capabilities rated at "3/10 double buffered with one of the buffers being /dev/null". I have vivid dreams, but when awake, I can at best visualize something for fraction of a second before it disappears into "I feel it's there but I can't see it anymore" domain. Does anyone know of a way (exercises, maybe) to improve the ability to visualize vividly? Is this even possible? So far I've been doing simple exercises of trying to capture a part of the "image flashes" in my mind and focusing on keeping it visualized, but I didn't get anywhere.

FullMtlAlcoholc• 10 years ago

Wish the Switch supported VR. Then, the first killer app would be the first Nintendo game much as Zelda:Ocarina of Time and Mario 64 were the first killer 3d games. Almost all modern 3d games use design patterns from them.

Pica_soO• 10 years ago

What happens if you put a VR-Cinema into a Elevator attached to a Cardanian Cage? Total Vomit-immerssion!

Ph0X• 10 years ago

Something they definitely need a solution for is sanitation, since there will be a lot of reuse of the same headset. I've heard this is a big issue that people over overlook at conventions, and there has been cases of eye herpes going around.

fezz• 10 years ago

+security where do you put your purse, backpack, etc. while you can't see what's going on around you.

ngokevin3• 10 years ago

It helps to buy the waterproof sports covers so you can just spray and wipe after each use.

eriknstr• 10 years ago

Perhaps they could do like what is done when using certain types of medical equipment and ave the part that is in contact with the person wearing it switched out between each use.

paulmd2• 10 years ago

The problem is that the body and lenses of the VR set are also likely to come into contact with your face/eyes. This is amplified by the fact that the lenses are really optimized to be right against your eyes. As you go farther and farther out, the field of view gets narrower and the picture gets softer. So most VR users will prefer to play with them cranked in as far as they can go (while still fitting eye-glasses, etc). The "thin"/"wide-FoV" VR covers I posted above actually put you even closer than would normally be possible.

Disposable pads would probably be nice in a commercial setting like a theater, but you would also really need to spray down the body and lenses of the headset with a sanitizer because some contact with the lenses is nearly inevitable. AFAIK this is similar to how 3D glasses are processed for reuse.

I would just like to note that it is an extremely difficult optical problem to get what amounts to a smartphone a half inch from your face with no screen curvature to present an image that covers your field of view adequately, focused at optical infinity, at a relatively constant magnification factor (pixels are the same size), and without such excessive levels of distortion that the rendering cannot be corrected in software. The closest analogy is really the old superwide Nikon lenses that needed to have the mirror flipped up so they could go deep into the camera and perform corrections right up to the film plane.

Really it's a testament to modern manufacturing and lens design that this is possible at any sort of a price that would be reasonable for consumers to own. Molded plastic lenses with aspheric surfaces are amazing compared to what you could do with regular spherical glass surfaces.

http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/nikkore...

paulmd2• 10 years ago

VRCover makes vinyl covers that prevent the foam from sucking up sweat. You can just clean them with a mild spray sanitizer or wipes. This makes a huge difference for any sort of athletic game, otherwise if you take the headset off even for a minute the damp foam will cool off, and it feels absolutely hideous to put a cold damp headset on your face.

I have some of their newer 6mm ("wide-FOV") replacement pads for the Vive and while I found the "cover" style to be fidgety to get and keep in place the replacement pads are a huge improvement. Literally just remove the old foam and slap the new vinyl pad on (attaches via velcro like the OEM pads).

https://vrcover.com/product/htc-vive-foam-replacement-6mm/

A++ would buy again. Major quality of life improvement over the standard pads.

With vinyl covers I don't see what would stop you from just spraying down the whole surface that comes into contact with your face - assuming whatever you use isn't nasty enough to fog the plastic. I don't do it because it's not really a concern apart from face grease if you bump the lenses, which I clean with a microfiber cloth.

shams93• 10 years ago

50m could pay for some animated content but considering the average cost of a mainstream live action film is around 400 million, 50 million is like pocket lint in Hollywood. Whoever gets that funding is going to have to get very creative because Imax expects something that is going to cost more than a 400m film to be created with a 50m budget.

aaron695• 10 years ago

You get IMAX has been using shared 3d glasses for years right?

Where the heck did this come from? Relevance to article?

kranner• 10 years ago

3d glasses don't have damp foam that can harbour bacteria and can be wiped down with an alcohol swab. Also, the comment is totally relevant.

IMAX raised $50M to fund creation of VR experiences

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