Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

Home | Dictionary | Timeline | New

USC's Project Holodeck

Project Holodeck seeks to give us sf fans what we have been longing for since we first saw it in 1987 on Star Trek: The Next Generation - a holographic environment simulator (or "holodeck") for our own!

Project Holodeck is an Advanced Games project at USC’s Interactive Media Division at the School of Cinematic Arts, as well as the Gamepipe Laboratory at the Viterbi School of Engineering. We are creating the first consumer-facing VR play space, as close the the proverbial “holodeck” as is technologically possible today, all with inexpensive hardware and creatively integrated peripherals at a huge fraction of the price of industrial VR systems.

...Most true VR companies, whether involving head-mounted displays, CAVE projector systems, or haptic feedback, tend to focus on industrial contracts as opposed to consumer usability. As a result most of the tech just isn’t built for the games industry. On the other hand, some companies like Sony and Vuzix are creating consumer HMDs, but they are fundamentally lacking in key elements that make a true VR experience, such as head-tracking and wide FOV. Thus they fall drastically short of expectations, and offer no additional value to current videogames.

Project Holodeck challenges these conventions. In conjunction with the Oculus RIFT, which supplies orientational tracking of the player’s POV in a wide field-of-view display, we are developing custom software that networks four Kinects and other peripherals to allow players to experience full-body positional tracking in a VR play space of variable size. We are also experimenting with the Razer Hydra, Playstation Move, and similar custom hardware as viable alternatives to the Kinect for positional / orientational tracking of the user’s head and body.

From Project Holodeck via IGN.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 8/11/2012)

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Display ")

Did Frank Herbert Predict Bistable Displays Like E-Ink?
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.' - Frank Herbert, 1964.

I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...' - Iain M. Banks, 2010.

Outdoor Video Screens Can Be Arbitrarily Large
The Shape of Things To Come, HG Wells, 1936.

iPhone Air Fulfils Jobs' Promise From 2007 - A Giant Screen!
'... oblongs were all over the floor and surfaces.' - Kazuo Ishiguro, 2021.

	Web TechNovelgy.com

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

'If Anyone Is Watching Earth...'
'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'

Epirus High-Power Microwave Defeats Drones
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'

Cloud Of Space Rubbish From China's Long March Rocket
'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'

Biomimetic Tendons From Rochu Robotics
'... the curious parallelism to animal motions.'

Living Human Neuron Biological Compute Rack
'The men are dead, but their acquired wisdom lives on and I am the beneficiary.'

Martha Stewart Approves Ojai 'Living Room On Wheels'
'Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting.'

ESA's Draco To Study Heat Of Reentry
'...a synthetic which air-friction would erode.'

Buy A Galaxy? Maybe Start Smaller
'The sky is the limit' just got higher.

The United States Space Academy Is Official
'Is our orbit to Space Academy clear?'

Is There A Global Problem With Who Is Having Children?
'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'

You Will Eat The Cookies Made From Plastic...
'Our planes are going to start bringing in bales of discarded plastics...'

It's A Giant Robot! You Reporters Have Been Warned!
'... completely forgetting the ship at sight of the awesome figure and great head of the giant Gaut...'

Birds Learn To Sing Pictures ala Frank Herbert's Distrans
'We will fight in the time of fighting.'

ElectionSim: China's 'Ender's Game' Battle Sim, Or Lem's 'Kingdom In A Box'?
'So, Ender, we will now begin your education.'

Tactile Skin Supplier Map
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'

Flock Stymied By 'Adversarial Fashion'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories