Stanford lab makes virtual reality more life-like
February 23, 2012 | Length: 00:03:22
At Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Professor Jeremy Bailenson has created a thoroughly convincing virtual reality environment. SmartPlanet's Sumi Das tours the lab to find out what technology makes it happen and how VR is likely to be used in the future.
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Transcript
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>> Don't forget your inaudible.
>> Sumi Das: Nine years ago, Professor Jeremy Bailenson started the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University.
>> Good job.
>> What we do in this lab is we ensure that the perceptual experience you get far surpasses than any of these old cliched notions of virtual reality.
>> Sumi Das: Most people toss those cliches once they get a taste of virtual reality -- or VR -- at this lab, myself included. During our visit, lab researchers demoed two experiences. In the first, users chop down a tree using a force feedback, or haptic device, that simulates the feel of sawing. In the second experience, called The Pit, users walk a narrow plank, carefully avoiding a steep drop.
>> One of the reasons this environment feels so realistic, as if I could fall at any moment now, is because the lab uses technology that provides sensory feedback in three ways. There are devices called butt kickers that are mounted underneath the floor to make it shake, 22 speakers provide audio input, and then there's this -- the head-mounted display that gives users a stereoscopic view of their virtual world.
>> Sumi Das: That view is clear and sharp, not the choppy video you may expect.
>> We refresh what you're seeing 100 times a second, and sound gets put in the exact right spot where it should be in the room.
>> Sumi Das: 18 desktop PCs handle user tracking and rendering the environment, while an infrared optical system monitors subjects with extreme precision.
>> We have very sensitive apparatus that can detect that movement, for example, up to an accuracy of one-quarter of 1 millimeter error, and very frequently 100 times a second. We know exactly how you've moved, and we've changed your senses to accurately update the virtual world to reflect that physical movement.
>> Sumi Das: These experiments have very different goals. The tree chopping demo explores whether conservation behavior can be increased by recreating the sensation of cutting down a tree. Researchers have found these subjects later tend to use and waste less paper. The Pit demonstrates how VR can help people overcome phobias, such as the fear of heights.
>> Oh my God.
Laughter
>> Sumi Das: This more lifelike iteration of virtual reality is likely to become a valuable tool for a range of industries, from automobiles to healthcare. Ford, for example, uses VR to create virtual test drives.
>> Ford is using virtual reality to build car simulations so that they can examine products before people enter them. So it's much cheaper to change the size of a virtual car than it is to change the size of a physical one, and they can test out different designs.
>> Sumi Das: And at the University of Washington, a VR game set in an arctic zone called Snow World helps ease pain for burn victims during wound treatment. Virtual reality for real world benefits. For Smart Planet, I'm Sumi Das.
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