Aerial feedback

"Roziotti" wrote:
Hail, glorious nation of virtual reality. I apologize for the bad English. While I expect the opportunity to travel to the mainland for the purchase of software needed ... And also expect payroll to order the "main unit" (here I think many will understand) ... I decided to dream up on improving feedback.
What do you think, does the right to life is a bit of a sphere consisting of cell-fans? Or air ducts conducting the forced air flow? Something produces an air flow counter your movement. As you can see something like that? Maybe it's a terrible idea, but I really interested in your opinion.

Your English is a bit difficult to understand (sounding like a machine translation). But your IDEA (which is the important point) sounds quite interesting. I will summarize and extend that idea here to aid understanding for others:

The basic idea presented above is to provide "wind" haptic feedback by surrounding the player with a sphere of small fans or air ducts, computer controlled to direct air flow at the player FROM the direction of travel in VR space.

It sounds like a very interesting idea, especially if vanes are added so that many more fans can contribute to simultaneous unidirectional air flow from any selected fan or duct cluster, and more body area can be stimulated by this VR-guided vectored air flow.

This is an extension of ideas presented (and used) by others, but this idea adds fine-grained control for better immersive feedback.

Or, at least that is my interpretation... :D

That's exactly what I meant. Thank you very much.

How would this idea look? Would this be attachable to a device like the Omni? Or surround yourself with industrial box fans that are set to receive a signal from a game to know which speeds to power at? I think this is a nice concept. If I'm sky diving in game it would be AMAZING to feel the air rushing at me! I would just like to know how this could be practically implemented.

Well, there are many possibilities... I was thinking about the industrial box. In any case, the problem - the diameter of the sphere. Another problem - noise. Sphere - not what I'm going to do, just the idea that I wish to share. With my English is hard to describe my vision of the details.

I imagine that this would be rather bulky (like the Omni) to give space to people on the inside. What is your native language? Maybe there is someone here that you could communicate in that language (in private messaging) and then we can get a summary. Otherwise, draw a simple sketch and try to explain it like that.

Could have sworn somebody linked a youtube video here of somebody that set this up with some arduino boards. I'd certainly be interested in the effect that has on immersion or just environmental factors.

Pity water is so hazardous to controllers and the rest or you could take it a step further and add a temp controlled misting setup to simulate steam or cold water spray. Walk through a pipe ingame with steam blowing out sort of thing. That'd probably do wonders for the immersion, but would be pretty rough on the devices in physical space.

"Felix12g" wrote:
Could have sworn somebody linked a youtube video here of somebody that set this up with some arduino boards. I'd certainly be interested in the effect that has on immersion or just environmental factors.

My Google-Fu is inadequate for this task at the moment. All I could find is an Arduino controlling 20-fans being used as a musical instrument (with video):
http://www.fabienzocco.net/V_I_en.php
...
And here is an Arduino PWM fan speed controller:
http://www.instructables.com/id/PWM-Arduino-fan-speed-controller/

I will look a little more...

... Okay, here is a thread at MTBS3D that uses Uniduino to control a fan and light in Unity:
http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=17629

And more Uniduino goodness in a local thread:
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1227

I'm not an engineer, my ideas may seem primitive. But well, I'll explain my vision on Saturday. With simple sketches. Maybe someone will like it.

As usual, busy at the wrong time. Cleaning of the villa. In any case, I need somebody Russian-speaking. With a good knowledge of English, of course.

I'll try to draw a simple model in a blender. I did not expect, but... It looks like I have no other suitable software. Hard times comes when you have a terrible internet connection.