Sure, you get a pretty good workout on that
regular treadmill, but don't you think you could burn more calories if you had a little directional freedom? Well, thanks to the ridiculously clever people at Virtual Space Devices, you're one step closer to breaking free of your staid workout -- and one step closer to fully immersive virtual environments. The Michigan-based company has been developing an omni-directional treadmill since 1996, and they appear to have come up with a real solution -- a self-contained unit which allows you to walk (or run) in any direction you choose, without actually covering any ground. Next up the company plans to manufacture a device called the iPlane, which will not only allow you to walk and run wherever you want, but
fly as well, which should make future iterations of Doom really, really interesting. Watch the video after the break and be stunned and amazed.
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posted Aug 10th 2007 12:01PM
Can someone tell me what applications this might have? I'm not saying there are none, I just haven't thought too long about it. Interesting, nonetheless.
Immersive virtual reality, where you would have your 3D glasses, would walk accross a location and actually "move" through the place.
Next: virtual steps!
Read the headline...
Thanks, guys. But I have to believe that their purpose for developing this is maybe more than virtual reality/video games.
What I was originally thinking was maybe sports/physical training where the subject has to react quickly to the directional changes. Thoughts?
Yeah, ever played an fps (first person shooter)?
Ever held a gun (thing the shoots out lead slugs)?
Ever worn a head mounted display ( video screen glasses/a Display mounted in front of your eyes)?
Ever wanted to live a game? the technology is emerging.. :)
Hmmm. I RTFA and apparently VR is their primary purpose. There's gotta be other good uses, too.
Think Holodeck...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodeck
Scott, what you're referring to was called "American Gladiators". You might be able to catch some reruns on ESPN Classic
Okay, now we're getting somewhere!
...no pun intended.
Very nice :^).. But I have a question: Wouldn't the sole of a shoe composed of many ballberings achieve the same goal? I mean, I'm just saying...
Only if walking on the spot is all you wish to achieve.
A system like this will provide readable x-y data to a computer, and no doubt it would be easy to allow the computer to control the tension and even the slope of the surface. This has some serious immersive video gaming potential (and probably by extension of that, the ability to make things like physiotherapy a bit more enjoyable).
Being able to have video games make you fit, rather than a big fat slob, I like where that's going.
Only if walking on the spot is all you wish to achieve.
A system like this will provide readable x-y data to a computer, and no doubt it would be easy to allow the computer to control the tension and even the slope of the surface. This has some serious immersive video gaming potential (and probably by extension of that, the ability to make things like physiotherapy a bit more enjoyable).
Being able to have video games make you fit, rather than a big fat slob, I like where that's going.
Stupid double posting grumble grumble.
One step closer to a real Holodeck!
Or even better make your own Jamiroquai video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJmX1z1NY2c
"Or even better make your own Jamiroquai video"
I think you nailed it.
This would be awesome for Madden 2011.
"EA Sports. Your in the game!"
Virtual Reality gaming...like the article says. You would put on your VR helmet, ot have projection surrounding you, and then you would interact with the virtual reality world around you without requiring a lot of real estate to pull it off.
"Wow, this is great!"
30 minutes later
"Wait, how do I get off?"
So thats what happened to Sadam Husain hes tied to a tredmill.................
okay so been looking at the treadmill and i don't think omnidirectional is correct while it is infinite from left to right, now north-south there is a little play, maybe a foot each direction, that is play not a direction.
Actually I think that what your seeing is just an optical illusion. I noticed it too, it doesn't seem like it's moving however if you notice he keeps walking in that direction without getting any closer to the edge. Or maybe your right.
my thoughts exactly. it's not 'omni-directional', but merely bi-directional.
There is a section where he quite clearly walks the diagonal for 5 or 6 steps. Never mind the fact that if you looked at the diagram of how this if put together it is definitely omni-directional.
That’s pretty HOT! I would love to play some sort of FPS game or some sort of adventure game where that Omni-directional treadmill could also tilt to simulate inclines!
But of course after 15-30 minuets or so, I might get tired and walk off the dame thing to go find myself a joystick and a chair. :P Still, I bet that would be 1 great Kick A$$ Experience!
First thing I thought of.
-and with Haptics AND the flight feature it could simulate when I get Panzered in the face playing Enemy Territory and it slams me into the side of a mountain!
Very cool!
Oh man, waitaminute...
Its pretty cool regardless of what use they find for it.
I think this most definitely will be bought and used by movie producers if nothing else.
iPlane? So 10 years down the road when Apple decides to make a flight vehicle is it going to be Cicsco/iPhone copyright infringement litigation all over again?
If anyone was smart they'd go wildly trademarking all the i-nouns for all nouns such that noun:english dictionary.
But how do you get off?
By playing "Tomb Raider: VR Edition"
"But how do you get off?"
haha, that's exactly what I was thinking.
that's genius! wow.. haha
If you watch the video carefully, you'll see that he can really cover a lot of ground while traveling perpendicular to the lines on the treadmill, and his distance traveled parallel to the lines on the treadmill is only ever a few half-steps at most. I am skeptical as to whether or not this is a true omnidirectional treadmill. The treadmill appears to have a small amount of lateral movement, but mostly forward and backward movement.
It is still a major advance over any other treadmill I've seen before.
Part of that could be because movement of the surface would be much less noticeable since there are no reference points for your eyes. His steps don't seem to be that much smaller, just less frequent in those directions. I wonder if there isn't a limiting factor in 2 of the 4 directions.
Looking at the video and the drawings, it looks like the entire surface is a treadmill for left and right movement and each segment is a mini-treadmill for front to back movement. If that is true than it does have true omni-directional movement.
jbcaro, you are probably right. I was unable to think how that worked for myself; though now I get it.
FAKE... they use the same technique as the Jamiroquai video
In J's video, the floor stayed still and people moved the room around from the outside. I doubt thats the case here.
I watched "Pop-up video" a long time ago. kys
I would like to see someone drive that omni-directional wheelchair (similar video that you can click on after watching this YouTube video) on this treadmill.
Omni-directional? I only saw it moving in two directions.
If it can move in 2 dimensions simultaneously, which I can't determine from the video, then yes it can move in any direction.
You're right. It's just two dimensional.
Once they get to three dimensions, then it'll be more omnidirectional.
While this is a great advancement, bringing it to market won't be as lucrative as what will be released soon after it:
The omni-directional treadmill-compatible scooter.
but does it play doom?
hmm is it just me, or does the picture kinda look like the hanging of Saddam?
Am I the only one who was freaked out by that? I know several people have made the "how do you get off" joke, but really, if you got trapped on there, how would you get off? If you do not have a way to kill the system or someone there to turn it off for you and it was designed correctly, you could not get off. That kind of freaks me out.
My first thought when I saw it? Imagine incorporating those into prisons. Throw one in the bottom of a cell and you never have to let them out into the yard for exercise. No more CaU punishment with solitary for everyone. No more prison riots.
You could hook it up to a generator, and the prisoners could power our houses too.
To get slightly physics-y, there are two definite methods to get off. 1) Run really fast in one direction then stop on the spot and let the momentum take you to the side (only a massive amount of friction in the device would stop it), or, 2) Move slow and low to the ground so that your motion does not overcome the coefficient of friction needed to move the surface. Thus, if method 1 doesn't work, method 2 would, and vice versa. ...and that became more of a serious argument than I expected.
What happens if your playing a fps game and you wana jump to avoid getting killed?
I think you would just jump to get off.
Or the opposite of how they got on there to begin with
This is total bull, it's all photoshop
I'd like to meet the the person who uses photoshop to do videos effects that would create the same effect.
I'd then ask them why.
The iPlane!?!? Seriously!! I guess they want to be one step ahead of Apple in case Apple decides to go into the airplane business or if they start making wood plane tools!!
Ok, for idiots who think this is fake.
The whole thing works like this, the smaller strips are like really small treadmills. The rollers for these small treadmills are attached to thing that looks like a tank tread. To go in one direction you would uses the smaller rollers. To go in a perpendicular direction you would use the tank thread. To go in any other direction you would use a combination of both. That whole platform is probably several feet high.
How about a jail without bars? with a sign that says "no hopping".
Thread over.
grrrrrr bunnyhoppers
All we need now is some tennis ball launchers to simulate incoming gun fire!
I only see it moving left to right...
This is completely real, it was developed as a joint partnership between MTS systems Corporation and Virtual Space devices. VSD owns the patent, MTS made it work. I see it every day at work.
The Device is omni directional, there is a large X component that is the main direction and then there are small mini Y treadmills that the larger X treadmill is made up from.
The treadmills then can move at any speed in either X or Y Direction Simultanously which means you can go at any speed(up to the max motor speed) in any direction at any angle 0 to 359 deg.
If you watch the other video called "Cyberspace Interface" that comes up after the linked video plays, you see him walk a lot more in all directions. Also, it looks like they use motion sensing devices in the outer edges to "see where you are" and then they tell the computer to move the treadmill so you are put back in the center. At one point he sidesteps and stops. Then the treadmill moves him back to the middle.
This is pretty fascinating! I can see several uses in greenscreening! Imagine not being bound by the size of your backlot or to the linear trappings of a regular treadmill...Sin City, Sky Captain, The 300, even The Matrix...awesome as they were, could possibly have benefited(not necessarily substantially)from this kinda tech. Plus it would make a BANGIN Wii peripheral...hahaha 'Wii Geoquest'...
wow... i didnt know they were re-executing Sadam Hussein.. or is this a re-enactment??
Here is a better video, showing all 360 degrees of movement a little bit more effectively. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msci440q18s
This has been in production for the military for a while, saw videos of it a little while back. But if you're saying it's actually coming the consumer side then I'm HELLA excited.
Why the almighty hell does it have to be an 'i' anything?! This has nothing to do with Apple, and it's not an mp3 player. I hate when people use marketing names for a product because it's 'trendy'. Ugh.
If you can walk continuously in any direction, how do you get off?
I was stunned. Stunned and amazed.
I am working on a much better haptic system using air muscles for resistance
Actually the surface is moved my motors controlled by a computer. At the current size you will be able to simple jump of the thing, but if was, say 4 times larger (and can keep up with running), you could stick someone on there and he would not be able to get off it.
They thinner strips cannot be continuous "treadmills"... doing so would prevent any sort of mounting point (unless we go back to the days of pulleys that allow cogs to run through their spokes... yes, those actually exist).
I can think of one way to make it work, though I'm not sure how practical it might be. Each of the thinner pieces are not continuous, but are instead a single linear strip rolled up like toilet paper at each end. The rolls are spring loaded (very weak springs, just enough to keep the strips taught), so stepping in a direction unrolls one end and rolls up on the other... when the foot lifts up, the springs even out the two ends again, ready for the next step.
I'm not saying that's how they did it, but it's the only practical way my brain can imagine. If they managed to do continuous strips, I want to see it.
(BTW, I'm patenting the above idea, just in case it's not currently being used :) )
The thin strips can most certainly be continuous treadmills its a matter of engineering. you first make a very thin long treadmill and then come up with a way of hinging them together at their lowest point, excluding the belt itself, then you could allow the mini treadmills to be run as the macro treadmill and there you have it would not be difficult to make.
The main issue I see is how to get power the mini treadmills. Controls could be done the same way as the power gets there or they could be lots of little nodes in a zigbee or other wireless network.
I know how it's done, he's actually walking on top of a giant ball! floating on a giant pool!....
in Iraq..
no, there's zero play in any direction. If you actually understood the diagram, it's obvious to see how this works, and can easily go in all directions at the same pace. Not only that but it states RIGHT THERE that it's intended for "online" GAMING! :D
I think they achieved omni-direction by using small stripes for north/south movement. If you noticed, the threadmill is composed of many small vertical strips that facilitate north/south movement, combined together, the small strips make a long east/west threadmill, so technically he can move in any direction indefinately.
i want to have a go on this with a segway
As to the "shoes with ball bearings" question above... yes those might provide simulation of endless omni-directional walking, they don't provide resistance or simulate feedback.
As to how would you get off... just like any technology, safeguards can be developed. Just as standard contemporary treadmills have safety keys, similar devices could be implemented to stop the unit in the event of a sudden need to dismount. It is a rather large piece of equipment, so a ceiling or overhead mounted pull-switch, similar to those that the elderly have in bathrooms/showerstalls could be implemented, tethered to ones' shoulder from above, so that if you drift to far from center, or trip, the tether pulls the safety key from its socket and disengages the system.
Just think... ideas will come.
This is a brilliant design, and its applications are manifold. From gaming, to athletic cross-training, motion capture in small space (and tighter camera focus), study of muscular systems, physical therapy, studying the walk cycles (and training) robots while the robot is still tethered yet allowing it full range of movement at various speeds, prototyping vehicles of the Segway sort (whereby you can test the vehicles capabilities without requiring large volumes of space).
Really, the usages are endless...
-ratnikh
This would go GREAT with TWISTER: the huge 3d surrounding cylinder.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/28/twister-goggle-free-3d-rotating-panoramic-display/
Regarding potential uses, ratnikh is on the right track:
- military and first responder training
- post-traumatic stress disorder treatment
- traumatic brain and spinal injury treatment
- gaming (of course!)
- sports
- in-space design and product prototyping
- motion capture, canned and real-time, for entertainment
- persistent AI, wherein we capture your movements, interactions, voice, and gestures over time and develop permanent personality models
Haha, I'm surprised no one has considered the torturing possibilities. Imagine being blindfolded and put on this thing, and not knowing you were on a machine. You would try walking forever, never bumping into anything. It would mess with your head.
This is pretty kewl! I can totally see this contraption brining in a totally new dimension to VR.