Virtual Reality is Takings Steps Closer To Landing in Your Living Room

While scouring the Los Angeles Convention Center floors for unusual E3 stories, we came across a group of people wearing virtual reality glasses and swinging foam swords and shields at each other.  Given our interest in the as-yet-unrealized potential of virtual reality, this naturally piqued our curiosity.

It turns out a company named Digital Extreme Technologies, Inc. was showing off its prototype “camera based video overlay vision” hardware named the RealityPro game system.The system’s virtual reality glasses we tried on were connected to a small handheld-size player unit that communicated wirelessly with another set of glasses.  The system plays games and applications via a slot for mini flash cartridges much like a typical handheld gaming system. The glasses themselves were a little bulky in their current form, but VP of Product Development Bob Ladrach promises a more slim-lined model in a year or so.

As we tried on the glasses, we saw everything that we had seen without the glasses (tables, brochures, a middle-aged guy), but the “Wow!” came once we held a bladeless foam sword and shield up in front of our faces. Different from most systems that attempt (with very mixed results) to recreate digitally the entire fictional world around you, the RealityPro glasses only created a digital image of the sword hilt and blade we held as well as a shield that overlaid our real-world environment.

While swinging away with our foam hilts we could attempt to block, parry and counterattack our real assailant’s virtual weapons in real time.  It was a lot of fun, but we couldn’t help but notice a little bit of lag and fading during the half-digital, half-real combat that will probably need to be worked out before the system reaches consumers. Understandably, without real (or foam) swords in our hands to connect with each others swings the system didn’t create the graphical representations of a strike being landed.

But the RealityPro showed some promise, and Bob told us that he’s looking to eventually get the virtual reality system into the hands of military trainers who can take digital close combat training to the next level, as well as amusement parks, where Bob says visitors can receive a custom trip from a digital tour guide at their side.  More simplistic uses can even include a 3D navigation system that charts your most expeditious paths.  Think GPS glasses that place a red line over the very street you’re driving on, then banking right to show the next street you need to turn onto.

The unit’s small size, which was shown easily fitting into a digital camera-like carrying case, could likely reach this goal if the technology manages to incorporate fully-programmed objects such as a walking, talking tour guide.  As gamers at heart however, we hope those tour guides will be well prepared to cross swords with us in virtual combat. We look forward to seeing a more advanced form of the technology next year.