Heads Up Virtual Reality – Bridging Visual and Tactile Sense

Imagine getting your hands on King Tut's mummy? Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have created a new – relatively – low-cost virtual reality device that allows users not only to see a three-dimensional image, but to 'feel' it too! The Heads-Up Virtual Reality device (or HUVR, pronounced 'hover') couples a consumer 3D HDTV panel with a half-silvered mirror to project any graphic image onto the user's hands and/or into the space surrounding them. With his or her head position tracked to generate the correct perspective view, the user maneuvers a touch-feedback (haptic) device to interact with the generated image, literally 'touching' the image's angles and contours as if it was a tangible three-dimensional object.



This is an excellent example of how different areas of immersive technology can come together to take steps towards blurring the line between the physical and virtual world!



The world's first ever Immersive Technology Summit will be held at the Los Angeles Center Studios (LACS) on October 21st, 2010.



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