Viiwok - Virtual treadmill & reality simulator.

Well that will depend on how much money the campaign will raise. I'm alone and if everything goes well I'll open a small workshop and hire a few people to help me out with the assembly. The components are readily available locally so I can move quite fast. Maybe 5 units a day, depending on demand. It will weigh around 20 kilos - 40 pounds so I imagine the shipping would not be over 30 or 40 dollars. It's about the size of the omni with a larger base.

20 kilos is actually 44 pounds ;)

"Zoide" wrote:
20 kilos is actually 44 pounds ;)

Thanks mate, edited ;)

I guess by now we know most of the basics about the Viiwok, thanks to your posts at the Realovirtual forum. What have been some of the biggest design challenges you faced and what aspects have you changed over time as a result? I find it interesting that you're using ball bearings on the shoes. How do you maintain an adequate amount of friction? Will they require periodicmmaintenance?

"lucsasaki" wrote:
Thank you for you reply Attreyu, much appreciated.

Your project does sound interesting and I'm indeed tempted to wait for it. I'm failing to understand how you are not in competition with the Virtuix Omni though, do you foresee people buying both? Or maybe you mean that as long as the product advances VR buying any product is fine with you?

I'm afraid that I'll wait for your product, miss out on the early bird special on the Virtuix Omni, and then potentially be disappointed with your device (potentially!) If a video by the 4th is impossible could you kinddly maybe answer a few questions?

-How is the user stable and the device and yet able to crouch?
-Do you foresee any problems with jumping on bearings mounted shoes? I'm no light weight.
-What is your devices diameter?
-How do the sensor connect to the computer? If wireless then how do you charge them?
-Else then the price, what does your device do better then others?

Thank you for you time,
Luc

Luc, I'll try my best to deliver a video before Tuesday. It's a question of assembly since there are a lot of national fiestas taking place and the transport companies stopped dead for most of the last week, failing to deliver a couple of components. I know... :D

I'll adress your questions:

Stability and crouching: The user's standing stability comes from the carbon fiber encirclement around the user. It's a 36" circular bar. The user stands inside it and radial connections similar to a harness, made of rubber connect the user to the bar. The rubber rays connect by clipping to the user wearing a simple belt. So you can use any of your belts from your pants and adjust it in such way you will feel confortable and tight. Being of rubber, it permits you jumping and crouching (not full crouching, but a semi standing pose so you are able to walk while crouched). The sensors detect acceleration on Z axis (vertically) so jumping and crouching are detected and assigned to any key/mouse combo you like.

Jumping: the bearing wheels sustain a 20kg each, trey are specifically designed for me by Omnitrack. You have 8 on each foot so unless you are over 320 kilograms, you should be fine. I foresaw the momentary load spike when you jump, it's about 50% at the second you touch the ground from jumping but the wheels can take it. Also, the shoe's soles are made from rubber so they can neutralise the shock. They're extremely confortable. More, I will offer the choice of buying the shoes or using a custom skate-sole already mounted with the wheels that you can attach to your preffered shoes and detach later.

Diameter: the base is about 130-140 cm and it's circular. The belt support is 36" - about 100 cm (1 meter). Sorry for not converting exactly from metric to imperial. I'll revise the specs a bit more precise towards the launch.

Sensors: All wireless (wifi connection). Battery powered - should last you a few days each and are easily replaceable, in about one minute. Those are the arduinos. There will be a couple of more already mounted on the system. Those are connected to a wireless USB hub that sends the signal to the computer wirelessly. Basically you'll have no cables running around that could get in your way.

Competitivity: It has no lag to speak of. You don't need a Kinect. You can crouch. You can straffe. Almost silent (the base is covered with silicon/rubber based dye that anulates almost any noise the wheels produce, besides production a certain amount of friction that provides stability). You can sit down on a small chair attached to the mechanism. I will offer Hydra like positioning that permits grabbing any gun toy you have and transform it into a 6DOF controller, using a velcro strap and your own smartphone (free app for iPhone/Android to be ready at the launch).

"Zoide" wrote:
I guess by now we know most of the basics about the Viiwok, thanks to your posts at the Realovirtual forum. What have been some of the biggest design challenges you faced and what aspects have you changed over time as a result? I find it interesting that you're using ball bearings on the shoes. How do you maintain an adequate amount of friction? Will they require periodicmmaintenance?

When I started thinking about this, the Oculus Rift was not even an ideea yet. The first challenge was to figure out the conceptual way of how would walking in place be possible.

Walking is a double pendulum assembly. It soon became clear that something was needed to neutralise the movement vector and momentum. A large sphere, like a human hamster wheel was the most obvious design. When I began to look into it, I saw that some russian guys did it in the 90s and it was about 50.000 USD each.

Trying to reduce the sphere to something more practical I had the ideea of comparting the shape into smaller shapes, smaller spheres you could walk on. This design had the base made up of hundreds of small spheres you could walk on, using your own shoes, without any modifications. But the cost would be still very high, you would need a large metal disc, full of little spheres. And you would still need a Kinect or Move for motion detection. I've spent half of last year on that design, improving it.

Then I had the ideea of integrating existing sensors on a simpler mechanism. The first version of what today is the Viiwok had a couple of ordinary mouse sensors glued on the soles of the feet. Lol, I know. And it worked ! the problem was the majority of games don't have detailed setup possibilites out of the box as far as key movement and assignments go. I was using an old FPS some of you might remember - Duke Nukem 3D. You can customise it to fuck. It was my regular testing bench.

I've given some details about friction in my previous post. There should be no regular maintainence required. Still, if the wheels are problematic and you need to change them, I would provide these replacement units for free. I'm that confident they wouldn't broke. In general, the simpler it is, the harder it will broke.

Thanks so much for all the info. This sounds amazing, I can't wait!! :)

Thank you. It's a shame that I can't put it on KickStarter, I'm having serious doubts about the success it would have on IndieGogo, compared with KickStarter which is a legend by itself. If I could find someone in the US or the UK that can help me with sharing a KickStarter account, it would be awesome.

Most exellent posts! I love the feet and waist sensor idea, if properly implemented it could make your avatar truly move insync with you.

I can't wait to see it in action!

By the way, I not american so metric is fine with me.

Yeah, probably I'll base the success (or lack of) on my fellow europeans. Don't even know how much should I ask from the campaign...