At the SID (display) show last week I got a chance to play with the Microvision Gun Mounted Pico Projector prototype and was impressed by its potential. This device had made the rounds at CES this year, but I hadn’t been able to get over and see it at that show. It’s easy to imagine that this kind of thing could put the reality into virtual reality for certain games much more quickly. Let me explain how.
Microvison Pico Projector. Image courtesy of Maximum PC.
A Pico Projector is a tiny projector increasingly either built into a cell phone or about the size of one. It is small enough to be mounted on another device or to be carried in your pocket. The folks at Microvision were showcasing versions with both standard and HD capabilities. But, if you think about it, were it mounted to either your head or a gun it could put the image wherever you were locking and coupled with accelerometers and an electronic compass, it could tell the game the direction you are looking or aiming at and wrap you into a 360 degree game.
The experience
In a well darkened conference room (these projectors don’t put out that much light yet), I was able to get a good, but not great, gaming experience. The reason it wasn’t great is that the image tended to drift a little bit and was relatively small so that my field of view extended beyond it, which limited my immersive experience. It was kind of like looking though a moving window into the battlefield as opposed to having the entire battlefield around me. The headphones Microvision let me use helped me orient on threats, but while the experience was fun, it wasn’t what it could have been.
Imagining the future
Now think of a Doom-like game that takes place in dark, poorly lit hallways rather than some kind of tropical battlescape. The dark room becomes part of the environmental effect and with a good surround sound speaker system or headphones, you could hear the game critters coming towards you in the dark and they could attack from all six walls coming through the sides, floor or ceiling. It might actually be better to head mount the projector rather than gun mount it, but on the gun it could be like a flashlight mount while the head mount could work like a miners light on the helmet. Granted, you still won’t be moving and will have to have an integrated controller for movement across the battlescape but imagine how real the feeling would be if wherever you look there is game stuff and even looking down at your feet would display the floor and the ceiling would show the burned out lights, bugs, rats, and critters crawling over your head.
If we could get the frame rates high enough, you could actually add a set of 3D glasses and suddenly that Star Trek Holodeck doesn’t seem that far off after all.
Testing the limits of virtual reality and making my day
We seem to be dancing around the idea of virtual reality. Microsoft’s Project Natal is coming shortly, which will eliminate the need for controllers. These Pico projectors will allow any room to morph into a battlescape, and the addition of 3D and surround sound will make that battle scape extend into your visible and audible reality. Granted, it will take a few years for this all to come together, but I’m looking forward to the day I can shoot alien critters in my living room while having the crap scared out of me.
Being somewhat twisted, I can imagine the day I’m gaming in the living room in full battle dress and a group of traveling preachers comes to the door to ask me about Satan in my house. I would then point the gun and projector at the wall and as virtual Satan steps through, blowing him back to hell saying “already taken care of, thanks for stopping by”. That’ll sure be a lot more fun than what usually happens.
Hell, I might even mount speakers in my entry way just to make sure we all have a religious experience and have cards for the local cleaners in case someone craps their pants.
Ah, we all have dreams right? Hey, at least then I’d actually look forward to the visits!
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