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blazespinnaker
Up and Coming
June 22, 2013

Smartphone Accelerometer + Hula Hoop ODT

As some of you may know, I have a walking in place motion capture system using a smartphone accelerometer that I have mounted on my torso (PM me for a copy of the Android APK),

One of the problems though with standing up with the rift and walking/jogging in place is that I have a tendency to wander in the real while playing the virtual as I turn and twist around. I've wandered into my laptop, tugged cables out of computers, etc.

I've solved this by duct taping a large hula hoop to the floor. Now when my feet touch the hula hoop I just step back into the center.

No harness necessary anymore! (this solution only suggested for those who have their VR legs and are very familiar with the game they are playing, beginners should be more safe).

Now, if only we could get a wireless Rift like my wireless headphones and I'm set!

    3 replies

    geekmaster
    Up and Coming
    June 22, 2013
    "blazespinnaker" wrote:
    ... I've wandered into my laptop, tugged cables out of computers, etc.

    I've solved this by duct taping a large hula hoop to the floor. Now when my feet touch the hula hoop I just step back into the center. ...

    Sometimes immersion-breaking haptic feedback is important too. Good solution! ;)

    Did anybody buy any of those fake passports?
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
    serrarens
    Up and Coming
    October 30, 2013
    I had the same issure and solved it slightly different. I put a round carpet on the floor which acts as my hula hoop. But additionally I have punt a small wooden puck in the middle underneath the carpet. This helps me to keep the center spot more accurately. In fact this works better than the carpet itself: I never find myself at the edge of the carpet anymore.

    Moreover I put a wooden stick pointing outward from the middle towards my hydra basestation position. This helps me to detect the 'normal' orientation in which I start the game. I need this, because I can turn my virtual body by rotating physically, by extracting information from the hydra controllers. The drawback is that I find myself in all kinds of orientations and especially when ending the gameplay I want to find my desk with the hydra base station again. The stick will point me exactly to this position.

    Pascal.
    Pascal. http://passervr.com
    3dgeek
    Participant
    November 25, 2013
    This is an interesting practical problem that I've found also (I'm about to kickstart an in-shoe pressure-sensor system). You can use my sensors while sitting down, which solves this problem - but takes away some of the physicality of jumping and such. I found that using a coiled cable (like a telephone handset cable) attached to my belt provides just enough pull to let me know when I'm drifting away from where I want to be. I like the hula-hoop and/or circular carpet idea though...I'm off to Toys'R'Us to get a hula-hoop!

    -- Steve
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