SigVR is the Special Interest Group for Virtual Reality, and our once great plans for Engineering Open House have been crushed, due to an unsolvable hardware problem in converting certain strange PC video modes (parts of the VGA spec, but strange nonetheless) to NTSC. Indeed, it is not only our abilities that are frustrated by this problem; several manufacturers of commercial equipment have reported to us that it is impossible to convert these strange modes into NTSC. Therefore, SigVR must start working towards next year's EOH. The Head Mounted Display (HMD) itself is operational, and by EOH, we should be able to display any 320x200 standard VGA image on both screens.
At the last meeting, we decided that from this point on we will begin to focus on several areas, to ensure that a better system is working by next EOH. We will work in the following areas: 1) Tracking (in a co-project with SigArch) of head motion with gyroscopes 2) Optics to increase convergence and insure comfortable viewing and use for all users 3) A software engine for the PC that will provide graphics in graphics modes that the HMD can handle 4) Fully functional VGA->NTSC converters 5) Position-sensing via low-end Hall effect trackers 6) A tactile feedback-capable glove controller 7) Use of the above to create virtual worlds/cool games.
If any of the above sounds interesting to you, stop by a meeting, Thursdays at 6pm in 1102 DCL, or e-mail sigvr@uiuc.edu.