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AndyOHart
Up and Coming
October 16, 2013

Final Year Project suggestions

Hey there.
I bought an Oculus to use for my final year project in College.
We can make whatever we like and I thought using the Rift would be a good idea due to the wow factor it has. The only problem is I bought it without thinking about what I could do possibly. I'm new to Unity and all the engines, which could hinder me a bit.
After talking to the lecturer who supervises the project, he said I should really implement another device if I want to get a very good grade. He showed me his lab where he had a Novint Falcon and another similar device called the Phantom. I mentioned the Kinect to him and he said it would be possible to acquire one for me to use.

My only question here is how hard would implementing any of these devices be to work with the Rift. I have around 9 months to do this project but I really need some ideas.
I was originally thinking of doing a jogging simulator using the kinect to detect movement, and just move the character using that, so essentially you would be jogging on the spot. Like I said, I'm not sure how possible this would be but I was hoping to get some feedback from other developers here as to what I could do to have a good project.
Thanks for any help!

    5 replies

    drash
    Inspiring
    October 16, 2013
    You possibly would not need anything else other than a Rift to know that the player is jogging in place. I believe the new Unity integration for SDK 0.2.5 lets you access the acceleration vector via OVRDevice.GetAcceleration(). I haven't actually used that myself though. And, you could learn and do quite a lot in nine months depending on how much you work at it. :) Good luck!
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    AndyOHartAuthor
    Up and Coming
    October 16, 2013
    Really? I didn't know about that.
    How does it work though? I have no idea how it could detect your acceleration.
    Also do you know anything about kinect integration just in case, if it is simple or not
    gunair
    Up and Coming
    October 16, 2013
    Hello from Germany,

    i suggest you should have a look in the Unity section end espacially the INPUT section of this forum, eg. there's a thread about your mentioned Phantom and Novint Falcon. https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=4664.

    Maybe my thread about a russian guy, using a kinect(??? At least I guess so) and a "Cross Trainer" as an vr input device could be inspiring you...

    https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=4576

    And as project suggestion... how about the use of fitness equipment in general?

    1: So, e.g. using an ergometer with the rift, your real movement "speed" is detected by the kinect and your virtual bicycle (maybe rolling through a nice landscape or doing a part of the "Tour de France", or similar) is moving accordingly. This concept would have a few advantages: A discrepancy between the "seen" body movement in the rift and an non existing movement in reallity leads to nausea. In this case, the movement (and feel of sitting on a bike) matches perfectly in virtual and real life! So nausea should not be a topic...

    It's a project you can show to all people (not only gamers) and has a "practical use" (with means "sellable" ;) ) - lecturers and Universitys love things like that ;)

    2. Use it with a Gym treadmill. While joggiung on the real machine, you could do a run through a park or do a part of the e.g. Boston Marathon in VR... Similar advantages a s above. Problem might be, that you are "blind " on the machine while wearing the rift. So stopping or tripping may cause an accident...

    So, to be honest i would like to wear my rift, when im sitting on my ergometer at the gym,...cycling through the world of skyrim... Nice imagination...

    Greets, Gunair

    PS: I'm an absolute beginner of Unity too, with NO programming skills. It's easy to work with. You will manage it.

    PPS: The next step of intearction between rift and ergometer could be a "direct" use of ergometer computers, where the terrain heightmap in unity would "trigger" the level of ergometer's cycling resistance.... :)
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    AndyOHartAuthor
    Up and Coming
    October 17, 2013
    Getting a hold of usable fitness equipment would be quite difficult unfortunately.
    I wouldn't have a clue how to integrate a fitness bike with the Oculus, or a treadmill.
    I was thinking that the Kinect would be the most viable option.
    Really not sure what to do.
    I have a meeting with the supervisor in the morning and I don't really know what to say to him. I have no idea what to do.
    greggtr
    New Participant
    March 15, 2014
    Bumping a dead thread. I have the actual tour de france programmed course bike (it moves up and down, increases / decreases resistance according to hills and wind) also I've been programming java/c++ javascript/php/html/css for several years. I want to build this. I think the way to do it is to take a 3d camera or even two carefully positioned gopro cameras and generate a forward moving view of the course. It may be possible to get a helmet cam from one of the competitors. Then create a partial display in unity (which I haven't used yet) so that you can use the head tracking to look around the limited video real estate.

    After this comes syncing it with the bike, which is not so easy without manufacturer help. The bike can sync audio with a smartphone, but I think the easiest thing to do is to just program the bike speed to be the same as the rider who created the video. Otherwise this involves trying to sync sensors which would require rewriting all the bikes drivers and too much effort for 1 person.

    I'm sure the added value is something the company is interested in, but I am unlikely to get their source code for this. Oculus VR company may be able to work something out.

    Or you could just learn to ride the same speed as Lance Armstrong :)
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