Forum Discussion
[Keyboard for VR] KickStarter new Idea.
Hello, I was seeing a lot of people trying to reproduce a keyboard in VR , due to the fact you cannot see your own keyboard when using the rift, the problem with that, is that we already have a rea...
I've been thinking something similar - there really is a need for some kind of hardware support for representing your physical keyboard within VR.
However, people tend to be used to their keyboards and somewhat unwilling to change them. To aid adoption, what about a system where you can bring your keyboard into VR, maintain motion tracking, and have a 3D-model custom-generated?
Here's vaguely how it would work off the top of my head:
You purchase an IR camera, and some IR markers. The markers go onto the centre of the 'Esc' key, the centre of the 'LCtrl' key, the centre of the '-' key on the numpad (or the right-hand side of the Backspace key if you're using a short keyboard), and the bottom of the 'Enter' key on the numpad (or the centre of RCtrl on a short keyboard).
Then you somehow input a reasonably high-resolution (i.e. not a webcam photo) image of the keyboard, top-down, into the software. It detects the position and sizes of all the keys. It then brings you into a VR demo where you fine-tune the keyboard height, and the key height. After that, you should be done - a 3D model of the keyboard can be generated, and its position tracked in realtime.
Obviously that exact solution wouldn't be how it works, but it would be a decent starting point, and illustrates the idea. The main plus-side is it would be cheap - basically just the cost of the camera and a few IR LEDs, and that people can bring their own keyboard. The down-side is it would require some setup, so it would alienate a lot of casual users. But to be honest, I think that most casual users aren't going to be using their keyboard all that much in VR - it's going to be more for people who want to use a VR-based OS or other productivity-type things in VR, and these people tend to be savvy enough to run a configuration utility for their keyboard.
A lot of the fancy functions you talked about are lost, but for those kinds of functions you might be talking about building $200 keyboards, which is going to really limit the number of people who are willing to adopt a technology like this.
...
That being said, if you were making a kit that allows people to setup the system with their own keyboard, it would be super easy to just build your own keyboard, have a nice textured 3D model already built for it, have the IR points built into the keyboard body, and sell it as a complete package. It might cost twice as much (so hypothetically, $120 rather than $60), but still affordable, and considerably easier for people who are willing to switch keyboards for VR.
I think you should totally give it a shot - I would back it. ;)
However, people tend to be used to their keyboards and somewhat unwilling to change them. To aid adoption, what about a system where you can bring your keyboard into VR, maintain motion tracking, and have a 3D-model custom-generated?
Here's vaguely how it would work off the top of my head:
You purchase an IR camera, and some IR markers. The markers go onto the centre of the 'Esc' key, the centre of the 'LCtrl' key, the centre of the '-' key on the numpad (or the right-hand side of the Backspace key if you're using a short keyboard), and the bottom of the 'Enter' key on the numpad (or the centre of RCtrl on a short keyboard).
Then you somehow input a reasonably high-resolution (i.e. not a webcam photo) image of the keyboard, top-down, into the software. It detects the position and sizes of all the keys. It then brings you into a VR demo where you fine-tune the keyboard height, and the key height. After that, you should be done - a 3D model of the keyboard can be generated, and its position tracked in realtime.
Obviously that exact solution wouldn't be how it works, but it would be a decent starting point, and illustrates the idea. The main plus-side is it would be cheap - basically just the cost of the camera and a few IR LEDs, and that people can bring their own keyboard. The down-side is it would require some setup, so it would alienate a lot of casual users. But to be honest, I think that most casual users aren't going to be using their keyboard all that much in VR - it's going to be more for people who want to use a VR-based OS or other productivity-type things in VR, and these people tend to be savvy enough to run a configuration utility for their keyboard.
A lot of the fancy functions you talked about are lost, but for those kinds of functions you might be talking about building $200 keyboards, which is going to really limit the number of people who are willing to adopt a technology like this.
...
That being said, if you were making a kit that allows people to setup the system with their own keyboard, it would be super easy to just build your own keyboard, have a nice textured 3D model already built for it, have the IR points built into the keyboard body, and sell it as a complete package. It might cost twice as much (so hypothetically, $120 rather than $60), but still affordable, and considerably easier for people who are willing to switch keyboards for VR.
I think you should totally give it a shot - I would back it. ;)