Catching a Real Ball in Virtual Reality | Hacker News Reader

Catching a Real Ball in Virtual Reality

disneyresearch.com

63 pointsdsr1215 comments

The change on strategy with no simulated ball between predicted trajectory and target catching point is pretty interesting, although it would also have been interesting to have an speed estimate on target catching to assert how fast the ball is approaching you, either an ETA or a color change?

Their explanation that the speedup comes from the task changing from a catching task which requires higher brain functions to a simpler visually guided pointing task seems strange in this regard.

As you say the catching point doesn't have an ETA. To catch the ball without knowing when it hits, you would naturally move as fast as possible. If there's a trajectory or the real ball, you have more time and can react slower.

Can anybody recognize the headset they are using? Or is it Disney's completely in-house device?

Headphones and straps look very Rift like, so maybe a modified Rift?

I'd second this, probably a Rift with a custom plate mounted on it for the tracking solution.

Edit: From the paper they are using the OptiTrack Flex 13 for motion capture and the Rift CV1. Software is Unity.

You can actually catch the vive controller in vr pretty easily. Is that comparable?

Yea the VIVE technology is actually easily adaptable to be able to track anything, including balls. The lighthouse tracking can support hundreds probably thousands of concurrent sensors.

e.g. https://twitter.com/ID_R_McGregor/status/717376471296151552

Would this be considered Augmented Virtual Reality?

Given that it's a representation of reality inside virtual reality, I'd go for Real Reality.

I believe the current term of art is Mixed Reality.

Would like to see them have a person juggle

The tracking on the HTC vive is good enough to do juggling. I can comfortably throw and catch a controller while wearing the headset. I'm fairly sure I could juggle them if I had 3.

Just came across this and it reminded me of your post - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13989468

i was expecting them to remove the real ball and him using the same actions.

we could replace the thrower by having a ball shaped drone thrown from an air cannon and it returns itself to the cannon, that way you pick up thrown objects or drones acting as objects on top of furniture.

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