Show HN: DiveReal – A Virtual World inside StreetView

by joak • 11 years ago

23 16 11 years ago

joak9• 11 years ago

I'd be happy to have some feedback on what to do next.

eXaQuark the networking powering DiveReal allows crowds. So thousands of people can gather for event like a concert. What's the best path to reach that point.

Red_Tarsius• 11 years ago

Is the OSX version coming any time soon?

joak9• 11 years ago

The OSX and linux versions are still buggy and crashing: It's time consuming to maintain several versions of the software for different platforms. I definitively want to move to webGL...

pierrec• 11 years ago

I think an in-browser version would make a world's difference in the number of people actually trying it out, although requiring the Unity plugin will not help. Something based on WebGL might be the coolest, but maybe difficult to put together. And more details on the underlying technology would be awesome (especially for the HN crowd). I'm wondering if it's open source, because I found a repo but it seems a bit old [1]. If it is, you should mention this more prominently!

[1] https://bitbucket.org/joaquinkeller/earthvr/src

joak9• 11 years ago

Actually, unity 5 (released last month) can now compile in webgl. So next step is clearly an html5 version. It would be great to have urls that bring you directly inside DiveReal at given coordinates. However, this will take sometime and put meanwhile divereal in standby.

I think I should also interact with today's users to try to figure out for what divereal could be useful..

joak9• 11 years ago

It is not open source: google's ToU/copyright does not allow to release a reverse engineering of streetview.

yellowapple• 11 years ago

I'd be happy to have some feedback on what to do next.

Hm.

Open-source it? Or at the very least, make it available for platforms that aren't Windows? That would be a good start, I'd reckon.

ArekDymalski2• 11 years ago

what to do next.

That's a hard question because Virtual Worlds look so exciting until the moment you stop and ask: Why should I use it? What for? In what way it's better than the solutions I already use?

I think that in case of regular consumers, it will be really difficult to find convincing answers ("I've got FB already and I don't need to move in it! I can stream the concert and don't need the crowd around me" etc.), unless you spice up your world with some game aspects. Personally I'd really dive into some kind of Ingress 2.0 which would creatively mix the real on-site presence with avatars.

You could also explore some more "serious&practial" applications of your technology: 1. Education, especially for kids 2. Planning and preparing the personnel for mass events. 3. Some kinds of behavioral therapy. 4. Immersive language training.

Just some rough ideas from top of my head. But I hope you will go for Ingress II :)

joak9• 11 years ago

Woaw. Many ideas at once. Gaming needs game designers and investors (am I wrong?). Will they come on a totally new concept? Maybe the risk is too high... An yes, I agree with you: that's the hard question. A VW what for ?

greenwalls• 11 years ago

I always thought it seemed impossible to make a new virtual world community because of all the energy and time that would go into building all the background graphics. Using Streetview solves the problem. Very cool idea!

joak9• 11 years ago

Yes. And what's cool with a mirror world is that it will continue to enhance as sensors will continue to provide more and more precise data from more places. The coverage and the spatiotemporal resolution will grow with time...

joak9• 11 years ago

So the conclusion is: more development ? What about to try to organise some events

pmontra• 11 years ago

I got to the site with my tablet and I couldn't see anything. I suggest to embed a video somewhere in the page. Maybe I'll remember to look at it on the computer later on but this is a way of losing potential users.

Btw, here's a video for other mobile users http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=plr7CZuWPJQ

joak9• 11 years ago

Thanks for the advice ! To be done ASAP.

joak9• 11 years ago

Done :-)

Show HN: DiveReal – A Virtual World inside StreetView

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