Imagine being able to take a step back in time and walk through the streets of ancient Pompeii hours before the eruption of Vesuvius.
In April 2008, European researchers will demonstrate that walking through virtual environments is set to be a reality. (this video is an earlier prototype)
“In the virtual environment you have flight simulators, car simulators, but the most natural way of locomotion for humans is walking and this was practically impossible,” says Marc Ernst, the coordinator of the CyberWalk project at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics.
To make virtual walking a reality, the CyberWalk researchers had to address five key issues: providing a surface to walk on, controlling the surface in a way that minimised forces on the user, developing a non-intrusive tracking system, displaying a high-quality visualisation, and ensuring a natural human perception of the virtual environment.
This month, at a special workshop in Tuebingen, Germany, the EU-funded researchers will demonstrate their treadmill allowing unconstrained walking in all directions (omni-directional) through large-scale virtual environments.
“Walking through a virtual city was impossible before,” Ernst says. “We are the first to demonstrate that you can walk through a virtual city or any type of extended environment.”
more details here