From: mueller@cs.unc.edu (Carl Mueller) Subject: Re: TECH: Walking in VR? Date: 20 Jun 1996 17:11:03 -0400 Message-ID: <4qcep7$a49@whitney.cs.unc.edu> Organization: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Ola Fosheim Groestad wrote: >Carl Mueller wrote: >> If one wants a non-enclosed, non-super-tall walking machine, then >> one must invent something similar to an escalator, but flat (like >> those accelerated walkways in airports) and able to operate in two >> dimensions (obviously the tricky part). Again, if it is to be flat, > >Actually, I don't think it's all that hard. Imagine a steel loop >(wheel-like) covered with "ball bearings"/"rollerballs". Cover this >completely with a flexible rubbertube with built in fibres for >stability. Use wheels to move the bidirectional walkway. It would be >expensive though, and you still have to deal with other problems. I find it a bit difficult to visualize what you say, but it sounds similar to another idea I had. The "interlocking tiles" I mentioned earlier could all form a large torus. You then stick a large dish inside the torus, and then outside the layer of torus just under the dish you place some ball-roller supports. These supports will end up being in the "hole" of the torus. You flatten up the torus (to save space), and support the whole structure via the roller supports. Thus you would have something like this: "Side" view (cross-section): ____ ____ / ----___________---- \ <-- torus | --____ ____-- | <-- dish (inside) | __ ----------- __ | | / ----___________---- \ | | | O O | | <-- rollers (O's) | \_______________________/ | \___________________________/ "Front" view (cross-section): ____ ____ / ----___________---- \ | --____ ____-- | \____ ----------- ____/ ----___________---- O O ___________________________ / \ \___________________________/ The friction between the dish and the torus (and between the torus and the rollers) should be minimal. Thus as you walk around, the torus will slide over the dish. The only problem is that you can't really hold the dish steady (since it is encapsulated inside the torus) unless you put some more rollers around its perimeter. You can perhaps accomplish the same setup with a sphere instead of a torus. The only problem is that you'd need to make the tiles differently (perhaps on a triangular basis instead of square). This setup would be very much like the "above-the-ball" setup mentioned earlier, except that now the ball is squished inward upon itself to form a concave surface. >A large room with a slowly moving floor would be better. Then you >would even get the feeling of running, but it would only work if the >user stops every now and then (to allow for the floor to slowly move >the player towards the center). Um, but what's the geometry of the floor? (Ie, how would the floor recenter the player?) That's the whole problem we're trying to solve! -Carl (mueller@cs.unc.edu)