Virtualization Gate – Full-bodied Immersive Virtual Environment

As many of you know, we have been involved in research related to geovisualization, 3D immersive virtual environments, and 3D virtual worlds for quite a while, and we’ve talked about some of the issues and opportunities a number of times on the podcast. One of the biggest obstacles to a compelling VR environment is getting a true sense of physical immersion, and a project called Virtualization Gate from INRIA and Grenoble University in France has developed a full-body immersive system that places the user within a 3D virtual world that can be interacted with. The video below, created for SIGGRAPH 2009, shows the system in action, but also shows just how difficult it is to set up a system like this with current technology. Still, this a pretty cool project, and I wish our CAVE setup at WVU could do this:

Via Singularity Hub