DIYer concocts homegrown View-Master, relies on HTC Magic and Google Street View (video)
By Darren Murph 
posted Oct 27th 2009 11:21AM
posted Oct 27th 2009 11:21AM
posted Oct 27th 2009 11:21AM
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Can't wait to see the KIRFers try to duplicate this one. Just try and find a good Sharpie to match that logo!
Awesome!
awesome junk you got there
I'm sure this could be easily used with some type of augmented reality(maybe with a better phone with a better camera), just make them a little shorts and i'm sure it would be pretty kick ass!
If you use a cardboard to seperate the screen in half and play a "3D youtube" with splitscreen, you have yourself a 3d glasses :D you don't even need 2 screens!
Next you need to figure out how to use the accelerometer to actually move around in this virtual world instead of just turning in place...
Why does it have to be so far from his eyes? Does it have something to do with the eye's focal point? Also would it be possible to hook up a pair of those movie/DVD glasses to your android phone and do this?
Yea, it's to do with your eyes focusing. Try holding your phone 3 inches from your eye and see how much you see. :D
You probably could use those glasses if you strapped the phone to the back of your head (Still needs to know when you turn your head, the box doesn't have an API for that ;) ).
Yeah, really - my glasses are "set" to about 20 inches (for monitor viewing) and about 10 inches (the bifocals for reading) - would be a pain to try to see the display with either!
I wonder if you had two phones, and a divider down the middle, so each phone was only visible to one eye, then if you could offset each image slightly, could you simulate 3d? It would work like those cross-eye 3D illusions (google it).
Thats what I was thinking it was from the beginning till I realized it was one phone.
Same here, but I think the Streetview images are too far apart in general. Maybe if you are looking into the distance of some images you would get the illusion, but for things that were close to the car when the images were taken, I don't think would work. This is just my guess though.
I think you'd probably go cross-eyed if it was too close to your face.
Wouldn't work. Google images are taken from one "center point" -- that is, one point in space. Your eyes are at two different points in space. That's how stereopsis works.
What a tool.
Very simple, but actually pretty cool.
holy crap! this virtual reality is 3D as sh*t! it's like i can reach out and touch it! where's the....oh god! f*ck i'm lost! i'm lost in paris! MOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!
Uhm, no. The fun bit about a ViewMaster or VR headsets is that they provide a slightly different image for each eye, thus giving you 3D images. This adds exactly nothing to what the HTC and Street View can already do.
This guy needs to get out more.
I would have been more impressed if he outputed the screen to a single monicle like headset! Something maybe to aim for rather than dorkgles!
i disagree! these are so awesomely junky, that i like it. proof of concept type stuff vs all effort putting it into a shiny apple-esque shell.
although... i dont think much effort went into it, so my point might be moot.
hmm apparently my reply attached to someone else's comment.. neat.
So wait, wouldn't these be Virtual Reality GOOGLES?
You, sir, win one free copy of the internet.
I was expecting this to use Layar or some kind of Augmented reality app. This is what I want to do: Two phones, running Layar or something, one for each eye. Then you get stereoscopic vision, you can actually see the world around you so you don't get hit by a car, and you get google local results or what have you.
When can I sign up for my retinal implant?
I, for one, welcome our goggle-wearing overlords..
no, wait....... crap.
It's wierd how this guy can do this, but this hasnt been implemented yet very well in gaming... I realize they have those glasses that make it looke like a 60inch tv or whatever, but they dont let you swivel!
This is totally lame without 3D, which is the whole point of a viewmaster. If he had split the screen in two and figured out a way to get two slightly different perspectives of each scene for real 3D perception, then this would be an awesome hack. As is, it's a phone taped to the side of a cardboard box.
This guy is just stupid. The point of the viewmaster was the 3D-effect given by showing a different picture for each eye. It also focused the image to make it look big and far away.
The build quality is lacking at best, I can see the structural integrity being compromised by that no frills brand scotch tape. Better come with a good warranty...
From the article..."it'll be at least a score before we get the urge again"
A score of what, years, dollars, pixels? A 'score' is just a unit of measure. As it's written it reads exactly the same as... "it'll be at least twenty before we get the urge again".
Sorry, being the grammar police is lame, but since you didn't include a unit of measurement either in that statement, nor the preceding 'far far too long' one, there's no indication of what you actually mean (though it's easy to guess). Just being picky because it's not the first time I've seen you use 'score' in reference to time, without it actually being stated in the article.
But then again, I guess I shouldn't be complaining about my pet peeves on the internets. :)
No doubt they got the word from Lincoln's gettysburg address where he says "Four score and seven years ago" which would give you a reference.
would work better with layar so its actually a HUD, and possibly walk w/o getting hit by a car.
I think part of the point is that you don't have to actually go to these places to see them...
This would be cool with two iPhones running an Augmented Reality capable app. It COULD work.
...or ANY other Augmented Reality capable phone. I didn't mean to sound like a fanboy.
Vritual Boy pwns, forget this trash!! :)))
Looks great but screw all this diy stuff. When am i going to get my full on VR headset?
I spent loads of quids in 1991 on the arcade Virtuality games and they wern't bad, cept for the super heavy headsets. In 1993 Sega promised a vr headset for the Genesis (yeah right, like that was ever going to happen). Eventually everyone seemed to concede that the hardware just wasn't there. (interestingly, in the case of Robots the hardware is arriving first and the ai is decades if not a century behind).
In the early 90's 3D software sucked and we had well clunky VR hardware but then 3D graphics software got really beautiful and the hardware seemed to go nowhere.
One problem was having all the motion tracking on the headset which made it heavey. Now we got tiny acceleromitors 'and' Wii/natal style trackers i think accurate head and hand tracking can be done off the head set. The last big problem is the screen to eye irritation. We need a screen for each eye to get real 3D and covering as much degrees as possible so you dont feel like you are looking through a couple of toilet roll tubes.
That Ernest dude with the 'game gun' did alright. Can't someone cobble together all the 'bit's so we can at least have an affordable VR game headset pack that we can download the instructions for. Surely it could be done these days for under a couple of grand.
I bet if you cut 2 holes for each half of the screen and figure out how to project each image separately per eye that you could also make it 3D.
Why do you need two phones, cant you get two displays out of same hardware ? well just curious, how it would turn out.
Basically, I learnt how to make a box from cardboard and attach a phone...
Ben Heck, I have a project to request from you...