Running through an augmented gaming world!

Sulon’s head-mounted gaming console

xtremeGaming

This is what the final solution of the company Sulon could look like.
They are working on their “GVX” system – a head-mounted gaming console, that allows playing in an augmented, virtual reality or augmented virtuality scenario. See the scope from classic AR to the holodeck with goggles! This sounds great? Indeed!

Sulon has given a longer press release last month where you can read their details. They aim at the above range of applications, focussing on a good combination of hardware for gaming. They want to have the gamer in place in the middle of the action, ideally including its real world environment. Really augmenting to an undistinguishable joint-reality let’s them coin their term xtreme reality, that actually just relabels Milgram’s MR continuum:

xtremereality

So, what do they promise? Let me quote a piece:

[The GVX] offers avid gamers the freedom to play anywhere, whether indoors or outdoors. Sulon’s proprietary technology involves applying advanced Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technology to create the most realistic and immersive gaming experience available, enabling players to have a Star Trek ‘holodeck’ experience in their own living space and bringing to life traditional table top games in 3D on any flat surface.

So, let’s take a look at the concept:

Looking at the technology for it, we find another behind the scenes video and information:

GVX uses complex and adaptive algorithms, high end graphics processing, motion tracking and position tracking to achieve the XR experience. The system has the unique ability to map the actual environment as the physical characteristics and boundaries of the game environment.

It goes on a bit, but remains a bit in darkness. I find comments on tracking via SLAM, bluetooth connection and on a generally wireless experience, but we cannot really be sure today, how stable reconstruction of the real room and tracking is for the player… We will need to wait and see. The pre-order for the DEV KIT (the software to start with) is running!

I’m sure hoping eagerly for more information on the hardware and timings for it! Great to see more players focussing on HMD gaming! Can’t wait!

Hyper-Reality: A New Vision of the Future

While we are at it regarding future extreme or hyper-realities: Keiichi Matsuda is still pleding for two days! I’m pretty sure, his new video to be produced with the kickstarter backing will be as great as the first well known hyper reality! He already made it! Congratz, Keiichi! But if you still want to support, do so via the website.

ardirt on insideAR 2013

Talking about the presence for a change, I wanted to also refer to Hugo’s great piece on the insideAR conference: you can listen to his podcast on ARdirt!

Enjoy!