[Devin Coldewey] shared his experiences with some of the more unusual VR concepts on display at SIGGRAPH 2023. Some of these ideas are pretty interesting in their own right, and even if they aren’t going to actually become commercial products they give some insight into the kinds of problems that are being worked on. Read on to see if anything sparks ideas of your own.
In the area of haptics and physical feedback, Sony shared research prototypes that look like short batons in which are hidden movable weights. These weights can shift up or down on demand, altering their center of gravity. [Devin] states that these units had a mild effect on their own, but when combined with VR visuals the result was impressive. There’s a video demonstration of how they work.
A more unusual take on physical feedback was a wrist-mounted device with two flywheels attached to it. This device — dubbed SomatoShift — is shown in the header image above. They work exactly like the reaction wheels on satellites. By turning these spinning wheels, different forces can be felt by the wearer. The prototype looks cumbersome, but the forces exerted by the system can be controlled with very high accuracy.
JumpMod is something readers may remember from earlier this year, and consists of a 2 kg weight worn as a backpack. By moving the weight upward or downward at precise times, the wearer can feel the illusion of a higher (or lower) than normal jump.
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