by Anand C. Patel
SigVR, the Special Interest Group for Virtual Reality, is approaching the completion of one of the most challenging projects ever undertaken by a bunch of students with minimal funding: the design and production of our very own VR system, consisting mainly of 2 PCs, our head-mounted display, and two hand-built VGA->NTSC converters.
However, if we are going to have anything at all ready by EOH, we must speed up our efforts. With an increased pace, we will be able to reach our EOH goal of having the NetSpace, the greatest crowd pleaser of all time, on the VR systemÑcreating a brand new VR experience. Once we accomplish this, however, we still have much work to do, principally on tracking, optics, and basic improvements on the HMD design. If any of this sounds interesting, we could use all of the spare hands we can get. This work is cutting edge, and is part of one of the most important advancements in computer science in years. We welcome any new members with new ideas, as ideas are what drive this technologyÑa technology that seeks the refinement of the man-machine interface.
For more information about the projects, simply email sigvr@uiuc.edu or come to one of our meetings, which take place every Thursday at 6pm in 1102 DCL.