Oliver Kreylos' Homepage
Welcome to my home page. I update it sporadically, so check the list of new features below, and otherwise just look around. And to those who have visited before: yes, I've finally gotten rid of that silly Java animation. It was kinda cool in 1996, but not so much anymore.
Breaking News
- 03/31/2022: Changed references to the AR Sandbox support forum from the old defunct forum to the temporary new forum on the Doc-Ok.org web site.
- 01/20/2022: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Propagation of the Hunga Tonga Eruption's Tsunami through the Pacific Ocean
- 03/13/2021: Released version 8.0-002 of the Vrui VR toolkit.
- 03/09/2021: Posted three software updates:
- 03/01/2021: Uploaded new video to YouTube: The Earth - Moon - Sun System, Drawn to Scale
- 08/06/2020: Uploaded new video to YouTube: One More Orbit's Pole-to-Pole Circumnavigation, Compared to Pan-Am 50's
- 08/05/2020: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Pan-Am Flight 50's Pole-to-Pole Circumnavigation of the Globe
- 05/22/2020: New blog post Idle Hands etc.
- 05/13/2020: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Great Circles are Straight Lines (as much as that's possible on a sphere)
- 04/21/2020: New blog post Is TCP Really That Slow?
- 04/16/2020: New blog post A Question About VR Headset Resolution
- 04/09/2020: Released version 6.0-001 of the Vrui VR toolkit.
- 02/26/2020: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Collaborative VR Experiments in ModLab
- 02/20/2020: Released version 3.9 of the Kinect 3D Video package because the previous release, 3.8, had a bug in it.
- 02/19/2020: Posted three software updates:
- 01/11/2020: Uploaded two new videos to YouTube:
- 01/10/2020: Uploaded new video to YouTube: How Curved is the Horizon?
- 12/29/2019: New blog post A Clarification About "Black Smear"
- 12/12/2019: Released version 5.1-003 of the Vrui VR toolkit.
- 12/09/2019: New blog post Visual Simulation of the Resolution of VR Headsets
- 12/08/2019: New blog post Field of View and Resolution of the PlayStation VR Headset
- 11/14/2019: Released version 5.0-002 of the Vrui VR toolkit.
- 07/27/2019: New blog post KeckCAVES On Mars, pt. Oh-I-lost-count
- 07/21/2019: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Dawn Sumner Talking About Mars Curiosity Rover
- 07/04/2019: New blog post New Adventures in Hi-Fi
- 04/14/2019: Uploaded new video to YouTube: AR/VR Sandbox at UC Davis Picnic Day 2019
- 04/08/2019: Uploaded new video to YouTube: VR Molecular Dynamics Visualization
- 02/27/2019: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Does This Photograph Prove That The Earth Is Flat? (Spoiler alert: No, of course it doesn't. Duh.)
- 12/26/2018: New blog post Welcome New VR Users!
- 12/19/2018: Uploaded two new videos to YouTube:
- 12/19/2018: New blog post Set-up Instructions for Vrui with HTC Vive Head-mounted Display
- 12/18/2018: Two new blog posts:
- 12/16/2018: Posted three minor software updates:
- 12/12/2018: New blog post Running Linux on HP Spectre x360
- 12/06/2018: Removed Vrui-4.6-003 due to a bug and released version 4.6-004 of the Vrui VR toolkit.
- 12/04/2018: Released version 4.6-003 of the Vrui VR toolkit.
- 11/06/2018: Doc-Ok.org goes down due to a power failure in the server room. It will take a while to get it back up.
- 09/06/2018: Released version 4.6-002 of the Vrui VR toolkit.
- 09/01/2018: Uploaded old video to YouTube: VR ProtoShop in CAVE
- 08/07/2018: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Aliso Canyon Gas Leak Visualization
- 06/29/2018: Released version 3.6 of the Kinect 3D video package, including a check to provide 3D video capabilities on graphics adapters that do not support the GL_EXT_gpu_shader4 OpenGL extension.
- 05/17/2018: Released version 2.5 of the Augmented Reality Sandbox, to be compatible with new Vrui-4.5-004 and new Kinect-3.5. Minor improvements in water handling and control pipe commands.
- 05/17/2018: Released version 4.5-004 of the Vrui VR toolkit, with some minor improvements to user experience.
- 05/07/2018: New blog post The Display Resolution of Head-mounted Displays, Revisited
- 05/01/2018: Released version 4.5-002 of the Vrui VR toolkit, with some minor improvements to handling of HTC Vive head-mounted displays.
- 04/20/2018: Released version 3.5 of the Kinect 3D video package, to be compatible with new Vrui-4.5-001.
- 04/09/2018: Released version 4.5-001 of the Vrui VR toolkit, with HTC Vive support compatible with the current SteamVR Lighthouse tracking driver.
- 02/19/2018: New blog post A Blast From The Past
- 02/19/2018: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Let's Play... Starglider Pro!
- 02/12/2018: New blog post The Display Resolution of Head-mounted Displays
- 01/31/2018: Released version 2.4 of the Augmented Reality Sandbox, to be compatible with new Vrui-4.4-001 and new Kinect-3.4. Offers experimental support for second-generation Microsoft Kinect-for-Xbox-One and Intel RealSense cameras.
- 01/30/2018: Released version 3.4 of the Kinect 3D video package, to be compatible with new Vrui-4.4-001 and new CollaborationInfrastructure-2.8. Improves support for second-generation Microsoft Kinect-for-Xbox-One 3D cameras, and adds new rendering features to KinectViewer application.
- 01/30/2018: Released version 2.8 of the Collaboration Infrastructure, to be compatible with new Vrui-4.4-001.
- 01/30/2018: Released version 4.4-001 of the Vrui VR toolkit, with more improvements for head-mounted displays, specifically HTC Vive.
- 12/14/2017: Uploaded new video to YouTube: LiDAR Viewer on Vive with Aerial LiDAR Scan
- 12/14/2017: Uploaded new video to YouTube: LiDAR Viewer on Vive with Terrestrial LiDAR Scan
- 12/14/2017: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Seismic Tomography Data in 3D Visualizer on Vive
- 11/16/2017: New blog post How Does VR Create the Illusion of Reality?
- 11/01/2017: Released version 2.3 of the Augmented Reality Sandbox.
- 09/24/2017: New blog post Projection and Distortion in Wide-FoV HMDs
- 09/02/2017: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Sensor Fusion for Object Tracking
- 08/04/2017: New blog post Measuring the Effective Resolution of Head-mounted Displays
- 08/03/2017: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Mixed Reality Recording with Moving 3D Camera (First Attempt)
- 08/01/2017: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Feedback-driven Measurement of Visual Acuity
- 07/31/2017: New blog post 3D Camera Calibration for Mixed-Reality Recording
- 07/29/2017: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Mixed Reality Recording with Static 3D Camera
- 07/29/2017: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Extrinsic 3D Camera Calibration - Moving Camera
- 07/28/2017: New blog post AltspaceVR Shutting Down
- 07/27/2017: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Extrinsic 3D Camera Calibration - Static Camera
- 07/20/2017: Released version 3.3 of the Kinect 3D video package, to be compatible with new Vrui-4.3-001. Improves support for second-generation Microsoft Kinect-for-Xbox-One 3D cameras, and simplifies command lines for RawKinectViewer and KinectViewer applications and KinectViewer vislet.
- 07/18/2017: New blog post Accommodation and Vergence in Head-mounted Displays
- 07/18/2017: Released version 4.3-001 of the Vrui VR toolkit, to again support the current version of SteamVR for HTC Vive support, and including several other improvements for head-mounted displays. Currently marked beta.
- 07/12/2017: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Playing Catch in VR
- 07/11/2017: Wareable published an article about our work on the AR/VR spectrum, from CAVE visualization to the AR Sandbox.
- 04/21/2017: Released new version of LiDAR Viewer compatible with Vrui version 4.2-006.
- 04/05/2017: Uploaded two new videos to YouTube:
- 03/22/2017: Released new version of 3D Visualizer compatible with Vrui version 4.2-006.
- 02/16/2017: New blog post VR medical visualization with 3D Visualizer
- 02/09/2017: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Collaborative Data Analysis between CAVE and Vive
- 02/07/2017: Uploaded new video to YouTube: 3D Visualizer on Vive
- 02/01/2017: Added new Movies page to the Vrui VR toolkit section.
- 01/30/2017: Vice Motherboard published a lengthy email reply of mine regarding Oculus' Constellation camera-based tracking system
- 01/27/2017: UploadVR published an article about my recent work retrieving clear black&white images from Oculus' Rift "sensor"
- 01/25/2017: UC Davis posted a news release about KeckCAVES, and specifically about the on-going work to natively support commercial VR headsets in the Vrui VR toolkit.
- 01/20/2017: Road to VR re-published part of my recent blog post on RealView's holographic AR headset
- 01/17/2017: New blog post A HoloArticle
- 12/01/2016: Released new version 2.3 of CaveQuake ||| Arena.
- 11/23/2016: Released new version of Vrui, Vrui-4.2-006, to fix a packaging mistake, and work around the "black screen" problem when displays report their physical sizes as zero.
- 11/21/2016: Released new version of Vrui, Vrui-4.2-005, with minor fixes.
- 11/17/2016: New blog post Vrui on Oculus Rift DK2
- 11/01/2016: Released new version of SARndbox, SARndbox-2.3.
- 10/21/2016: New blog post Boom, Headshot
- 10/20/2016: New blog post Technology Transfer
- 10/18/2016: Released two new versions of Vrui in a single day, Vrui-4.2-003 and Vrui-4.2-004, for some minor bug fixes.
- 10/17/2016: Uploaded two new videos to YouTube:
- 10/16/2016: Released new version of SARndbox, SARndbox-2.2.
- 10/15/2016: New blog post Vive la Vrui!
- 10/15/2016: Released new version of Vrui, Vrui-4.2-002, as a recent ABI change in Valve's OpenVR library broke Vive support in Vrui-4.2-001.
- 10/14/2016: Released new version of Kinect 3D video package, Kinect-3.2, to be compatible with new Vrui-4.2-001. Also adds support for Intel RealSense cameras using Intel's librealsense library, and initial support for second-generation Microsoft Kinect-for-Xbox-One 3D cameras.
- 10/12/2016: Released new version of Vrui, Vrui-4.2-001, with full native support for HTC's Vive head-mounted display.
- 06/08/2016: New blog post Keeping VR users from hurting themselves
- 06/03/2016: New blog post Remote Collaborative Immersive Visualization
- 05/25/2016: New blog post Lighthouse tracking examined
Uploaded three new embedded videos to YouTube:
- 04/28/2016: I added a bunch of new high-resolution pictures to the Augmented Reality Sandbox page.
- 04/28/2016: The Augmented Reality Sandbox has been on tour all month, from the White House to the USA Science and Engineering Festival to the Capitol to Howard University Middle School. Official press releases:
- 04/12/2016: Uploaded new video to YouTube: AR/VR Sandbox
- 04/09/2016: Uploaded new video to YouTube: AR Sandbox Update Latency Explained
- 04/06/2016: New blog post On the road for VR: The White House, Washington DC
- 04/01/2016: New blog post Optical Properties of Current VR HMDs
- 03/05/2016: New blog post Oculus Rift DK2's tracking update rate
- 02/12/2016: New blog post Lasers Are Not Magic
- 01/29/2016: doc-ok.org is down due to a cyberattack on the computer hosting it. As I'm out of town, it will stay down until at least Monday.
- 01/23/2016: I was on Leo Laporte's The New Screen Savers netcast to talk about the Augmented Reality Sandbox.
- 01/14/2016: New blog post Head-mounted Displays and Lenses
- 12/02/2015: New blog post For Science!
- 11/05/2015: Released AR Sandbox version 1.6. Available on the download page.
- 11/04/2015: Posted two minor software updates:
- 10/06/2015: New blog post HoloLens and Holograms
- 09/30/2015: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Playstation Move Tracking Test
- 08/31/2015: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Life-size 3D Video Avatars
- 08/25/2015: New blog post Zero-latency Rendering
- 08/18/2015: Two new blog posts
- 07/28/2015: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Locomotion in Virtual Reality
- 07/24/2015: I gave a presentation on the challenges of locomotion in virtual reality at the third Sacramento VR meet-up.
- 07/15/2015: New blog post On the road for VR: Augmented World Expo 2015, Part I: VR
- 07/16/2015: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Field-of-View Visualization of Current VR HMDs
- 07/13/2015: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Living With Low Field Of View
- 05/19/2015: New blog post On the road for VR: Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Conference & Expo
- 05/01/2015: New blog post On the road for VR: Microsoft HoloLens at Build 2015, San Francisco
- 04/08/2015: Uploaded new video to YouTube: From-scratch AR Sandbox Software Installation
- 03/16/2015: Posted three minor software updates on account of the AR Sandbox's sudden popularity:
- 03/06/2015: Uploaded new video to YouTube:
Optical Tracking System in UC Davis Modlab
- 03/06/2015: New blog post Archaeologists use LiDAR to find lost cities in Honduras
- 02/27/2015: New blog post The effectiveness of minimalist avatars
- 01/22/2015: New blog post What is holographic, and what isn't?
- 12/04/2014: New blog post Messing around with 3D video
- 12/04/2014: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Watching Myself Building a Molecule
- 10/16/2014: New blog post Hacking the Oculus Rift DK2, part IV
- 10/14/2014: New blog post Hacking the Oculus Rift DK2, part III
- 10/14/2014: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Optical 3D Pose Estimation of Oculus Rift DK2
- 10/11/2014: New blog post Hacking the Oculus Rift DK2, part II
- 10/10/2014: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Identifying LEDs Based on Blinking Patterns
- 10/05/2014: New blog post Hacking the Oculus Rift DK2
- 10/02/2014: New blog post Fighting black smear
- 09/26/2014: New blog post Update on Vrui / Oculus Rift DK2
- 09/24/2014: New blog post On the road for VR: Oculus Connect, Hollywood
- 09/10/2014: New blog post A Trip Down the Graphics Pipeline
- 08/25/2014: The Verge came to UC Davis a while ago to film a (short) documentary about our VR work. Here's the resulting video.
- 07/29/2014: There is now an AR Sandbox user support forum on Lake Visualization 3D
- 06/05/2014: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Pure IMU-based Positional Tracking is a No-go
- 06/05/2014: My Oculus Rift eye tracking post and my two eye tracking videos have been cited and embedded:
- 06/02/2014: New blog post An Eye-tracked Oculus Rift
- 05/21/2014: New blog post On the road for VR: Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Conference & Expo
- 05/15/2014: New blog post Here we go again with Apple's holography patent
- 05/15/2014: I was interviewed for the Voices of VR podcast.
- 05/14/2014: 3D Video Capture With Three Kinects is turning out popular. Current coverage round-up:
- 05/13/2014: New blog post 3D Video Capture with Three Kinects
- 05/13/2014: Uploaded new video to YouTube: 3D Video Capture With Three Kinects
- 05/07/2014: New blog post Quikwriting with a Thumbstick
- 05/07/2014: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Quikwriting with a Thumbstick
- 05/06/2014: Two-year anniversary of the Augmented Reality Sandbox's public announcement via viral YouTube video. There is still a lot of interest in it, and version 2.0 is due shortly.
- 05/06/2014: New blog post Gaze-directed Text Entry in VR Using Quikwrite
- 04/19/2014: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Gaze-driven Text Entry in VR using QuikWrite
- 04/14/2014: New blog post Someone at Oculus is Reading my Blog
- 04/09/2014: New blog post How to Measure Your IPD
- 04/04/2014: Two new blog posts:
- 04/03/2014: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Discrete Azimuth Rotation Aka "VR Comfort Mode"
- 04/02/2014: New blog post I Can't Ever Get Over This Mars Thing, Can I?
- 04/02/2014: Uploaded new video to YouTube: VR ProtoShop in the Rift and on the Desktop
- 03/29/2014: New blog post VR Movies
- 03/28/2014: New blog post 2D Desktop Embedding via VNC
- 03/28/2014: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Embedding 2D Desktops into VR
- 03/26/2014: A new AR Sandbox installation was just unveiled in Fairbanks, Alaska. Newspaper article: Augmented-reality sandbox brings topographical maps to life
- 03/19/2014: New blog post KeckCAVES in the News
- 03/12/2014: New blog post Game Engines and Positional Head Tracking
- 03/10/2014: Two new blog posts:
- 03/09/2014: New blog post A Follow-up on Eye Tracking
- 03/09/2014: Uploaded new video to YouTube: More on Eye Tracking (or Lack Thereof) in Oculus Rift
- 03/08/2014: New blog post A Closer Look at the Oculus Rift
- 03/03/2014: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Projection Properties of and Scale Issues with Oculus Rift
- 02/03/2013: Released Vrui version 3.1-002. Available on the download page.
Broken News
- 12/19/2013: The odometer on my YouTube account rolled over 7 million views some time last night.
- 12/14/2013: Released Kinect 2.8, the first version of my Kinect 3D Video Capture Project to work with Kinect-for-Xbox model 1473, and Kinect-for-Windows. Requires Vrui-3.1-001.
- 12/14/2013: Released Vrui version 3.1-001, with several major improvements. Available on the download page.
- 11/27/2013: Some new additions to the Augmented Reality Sandbox's External Installations page.
- 11/27/2013: Our web servers had a (literal) meltdown, but this site is (obviously) back online now.
- 09/04/2013: New blog post Elon Musk discovers AR/VR
- 08/30/2013: Wired.com published an in-depth article about the AR Sandbox today.
- 08/28/2013: New blog post Happy birthday, doc-ok.org!
- 08/20/2013: Uploaded new video to YouTube: New AR Sandbox Calibration Procedure
- 08/20/2013: New blog post Holovision revisioned
- 08/18/2013: New blog post The Holovision Kickstarter "scam"
- 08/16/2013: New blog post Stereo Sue
- 08/15/2013: Uploaded three new videos to YouTube:
- 08/14/2013: Uploaded new video to YouTube: CAVE Quake III Arena
- 08/13/2013: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Mars Rover in 3D
- 08/13/2013: New blog post Installing and running first Vrui applications
- 08/13/2013: Software update day. Uploaded new versions of the following packages to go with Vrui-3.0-002:
- 08/13/2013: Released Vrui version 3.0-002, fixing one bug. Available on the download page.
- 08/12/2013: Two new blog posts:
- 08/12/2013: Released Vrui version 3.0-001. Available on the download page.
- 08/09/2013: In response to the 08/08/2013 Quartz article, the AR Sandbox resurfaces on BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post UK.
- 08/08/2013: A good article about my work, specifically the AR Sandbox and my combination of Oculus Rift, Razer Hydra, and Vrui, was published on Quartz today.
- 08/06/2013: New blog post Vrui on (in?) Oculus Rift
- 08/05/2013: Uploaded three new videos to YouTube:
- 07/22/2013: New blog post AR Sandbox at Augmented World Expo
- 06/07/2013: New blog post On the road for VR: Augmented World Expo 2013
- 05/28/2013: New blog post The Kinect 2.0
- 04/23/2013: New blog post On the road for VR: zSpace developers conference
- 04/07/2013: My blog has gotten a good number of hits in the last few days, in response to my Oculus Rift experiments. But so far, my web server is holding up just fine.
- 04/05/2013: New blog post First impressions from the Oculus Rift dev kit
- 04/04/2013: New blog post An off-topic post
- 04/02/2013: Two new blog posts:
- 04/02/2013: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Virtual Worlds Using Head-mounted Displays.
- 03/23/2013: I'm on Twitter.
- 03/23/2013: New blog post When the novelty is gone...
- 03/22/2013: New blog post How Milo met CAVE
- 03/18/2013: Software update day. Uploaded new versions of the following packages to go with Vrui-2.7-001:
- 03/16/2013: New blog post Intel's "perceptual computing" initiative
- 03/15/2013: New blog post Virtual clay modeling with 3D input devices
- 03/15/2013: Uploaded new video to YouTube: Virtual Clay Modeling with Razer Hydra Devices.
- 03/15/2013: Released Vrui version 2.7-001. Available on the download page.
- 03/13/2013: Updated the Templatized Geometry Library to the version embedded in the upcoming version 2.7-001 of Vrui, to make it build again with current versions of g++.
- 03/10/2013: New blog post Oh, the places you'll go!
- 03/10/2013: A volume-rendered visualization of a meteorite fragment I created in 3D Visualizer made the cover of Microscopy Today 21(2), and is also one of the 12 winners of the 2012 "coolest things you've never seen" contest.
- 03/09/2013: A celebration of sorts: the odometer on my YouTube channel just rolled over 6,666,666 total views. I was hoping to catch it exactly, but due to YouTube's view count buffering, I missed it. :(
- 03/09/2013: New blog post Low-cost VR for materials science
- 03/08/2013: New blog post KeckCAVES on Mars, pt. 4
- 03/06/2013: New blog post Of CAVEs and Curiosity: Imaging and Imagination in Collaborative Research
- 03/03/2013: New blog post On the road for VR part II: Tahoe Environmental Research Center, Incline Village, Lake Tahoe
- 03/02/2013: New blog post Meet the LiDAR Viewer
- 03/02/2013: Uploaded new LiDAR Viewer video to YouTube: Meet the LiDAR Viewer.
- 02/21/2013: Marshall Millett, archaeologist and one of KeckCAVES' external users, was interviewed for a podcast by the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, where KeckCAVES is now featured prominently on the home page.
- 02/21/2013: Two new blog posts:
- 02/19/2013: New blog post AR Sandbox news
- 02/15/2013: New blog post On the road for VR (sort of...): ILMF '13, Denver, CO
- 02/08/2013: Uploaded some pictures of airborne LiDAR data with draped-on aerial photography using the preview splat renderer to the LiDAR Visualization screen shots page (starting at sixth image from the top).
- 02/07/2013: New blog post ... and they did!
- 02/07/2013: A new Augmented Reality Sandbox construced by Ithaca High School's FIRST Robotics Team 639 was just unveiled to the public at the school's open house. Pictures in the External Installations page.
- 02/06/2013: Belatedly added 3DVisualizer-1.12 tarball to 3D Visualizer download page.
- 02/05/2013: "Silently" updated Vrui-2.6-002 tarball to fix two build problems.
- 02/05/2013: New blog post Is VR dead?
- 01/29/2013: New blog post How head tracking makes holographic displays
- 01/26/2013: Two new blog posts:
- 01/25/2013: New blog post GPU performance: Nvidia Quadro vs Nvidia GeForce
- 01/24/2013: New blog post Multi-Kinect camera calibration
- 01/23/2013: New blog post Kinect camera calibration
- 01/24/2013: Uploaded two new tutorial videos describing the Kinect camera's intrinsic calibration procedure to YouTube:
- 01/19/2013: Released Vrui version 2.6-002 to fix a linking problem with the Razer Hydra driver plug-in. Available on the download page.
- 01/18/2013: Uploaded video on using a Razer Hydra 3D input device for a low-cost 3D display to YouTube: Razer Hydra for low-cost 3D displays.
- 01/18/2013: New blog post Low-cost 3D displays using Razer Hydra devices
- 01/15/2013: LiDAR Viewer 2.10 released and available for download. Updated to build with Vrui releases 2.5 and 2.6.
- 01/10/2013: Two new blog posts:
- 01/10/2013: Nanotech Construction Kit 1.8 released and available for download from the Nanotech Construction Kit download page. Updated to build with Vrui-2.6-001.
Really Broken News
- 12/26/2012: New blog post Seeing "The Hobbit" in 3D
- 12/22/2012: New blog post Visualizing the Sutter's Mill meteorite
- 12/22/2012: Uploaded three videos showing visualizations of various meteorite fragments to KeckCAVES' YouTube account:
- 12/20/2012: Three new blog posts (on a roll today):
- 12/20/2012: Uploaded two new movies to YouTube:
- 12/16/2012: Added an External Installations page to the Augmented Reality Sandbox page to collect descriptions and pictures of augmented reality sandboxes built by external users, based on our software and designs.
- 12/16/2012: Yet another software release day. Just uploaded new (or initial) versions of the following packages:
- 12/13/2012: New blog post Build your own professional-grade holographic display
- 11/14/2012: Augmented Reality Sandbox 1.1 released and available for download from the SARndbox download page. Adds optional constant water evaporation.
- 10/30/2012: Vrui-2.4-004 released and available for download from the Vrui download page. This release fixes the "missing visual" bug on Mac OS X 10.7 and up, and some virtual machines.
- 10/27/2012: Rhys George, an early AR Sandbox adopter, kindly prepared and uploaded a tutorial video showing how to prepare, download, and install the AR Sandbox software on Mac OS X.
- 10/02/2012: New blog post Visiting the Allosphere
- 09/22/2012: New blog post On the road for VR part I: UC Santa Barbara
- 09/13/2012: New blog post Oh Microsoft, you rascally spammers!
- 09/11/2012: Two new blog posts:
- 09/10/2012: Uploaded two new movies showing AR Sandbox calibration procedures to YouTube:
- 09/04/2012: New blog post How to film a CAVE
- 09/02/2012: New blog post VR in the movies
- 08/31/2012: New blog post The VR software gap
- 08/30/2012: Three more blog posts. This is fun!
- 08/30/2012: Uploaded two older movies to YouTube in order to embed them in blog posts:
- 08/28/2012: I was talked into starting a blog to talk about all aspects of immersive 3D graphics or VR, from a developer's perspective, but aimed at a non-expert "enthusiast" audience. Because there were already a few things that I really wanted to say, I banged out the first four posts in rapid succession:
Let's see how this goes.
- 08/27/2012: Vrui-2.4-003 released and available for download from the Vrui download page.
- 08/24/2012: Vrui-2.4-002 released and available for download from the Vrui download page.
- 08/16/2012: Kinect package 2.2 released and avaliable for download on the Kinect Hacking page.
- 08/09/2012: Uploaded tutorial video on how to calibrate an Augmented Reality Sandbox to YouTube: How To Train Your Sandbox.
- 07/29/2012: Major software release day. Just uploaded new (or initial) versions of the following packages:
- 05/09/2012: As of 9:00pm, Augmented Reality Sandbox with Real-Time Water Flow Simulation has reached 1.2 million views. Cool.
- 05/06/2012: Uploaded two videos showing the new Augmented Reality Sandbox to YouTube, as Augmented Reality Sandbox with Real-Time Water Flow Simulation and Virtual Dam Failure and Fun with Water.
- 03/17/2012: Uploaded new video showing a remote collaborative visual analysis session using 3D Visualizer and a CT dataset to YouTube, as Collaborative Visualization of Microbialites.
- 03/14/2012: Vrui-2.3 released and available for download from the Vrui download page.
- 12/06/2011: Vrui-2.2 released and available for download from the Vrui download page.
- 03/08/2011: Together with our collaborators from UC Berkeley, we received the "CENIC 2011 Innovations in Networking" award, in the category "High-Performance Research Applications," for "Tele-Immersion for Physicians," also known as the combination of 3D Video, Vrui's collaboration infrastructure, and 3D Visualizer.
What Are You Even Doing Here?
- 12/02/2010: Kinect package 1.2 with support for multiple Kinect cameras released and avaliable for download on the Kinect Hacking page.
- 11/25/2010: Vrui 2.0 has finally been released, after a long delay.
- 11/22/2010: Since it's been prominently featured in my most recent Kinect video, I figured I'd finally publicly release the Nanotech Construction Kit. GPL v2, yadda yadda yadda, you know the drill.
- 11/22/2010: I was featured in an article about Kinect hacking in the New York Times, 3D glasses and all. Yay!
- 11/16/2010: 11:03pm, one million views. Insane.
- 11/16/2010: Hot damn, my Kinect video has gone viral. Currently number 1 most-watched video on YouTube - and I mean all of YouTube, not just the geek section.
- 11/14/2010: Will add content to the new Kinect Hacking page soon.
- 11/14/2010: Uploaded two videos showing 3D video capture using an Xbox Kinect to YouTube: 3D Video Capture with Kinect and Measuring Virtual Objects.
- 11/11/2010: Just bought an Xbox Kinect, after finding out that the USB protocol for depth and color images had already been hacked. I want to try the Kinect as an alternative to our existing 3D video capture system, which was developed at UC Berkeley.
- 05/05/2009: One of my ray-traced Buckyball pictures was used as a prop in the science-fiction procedural show "ReGenesis," which I recently started watching on hulu. The show is about a team of scientists investigating infectious disease outbreaks. It's a good show, go watch it. My picture appears about 32 minutes into episode 9, season 1 ("The Secret War,") in which the team analyze a hazmat suit made from Buckyballs. The picture is immediately recognizable due to its color scheme, and because the Buckyball is floating above a checkerboard for no particular reason. This episode aired about four years ago, but I just saw it the other day.
- 04/08/2009: In celebration of my Wii controller tracking video on youtube having reached 200,000 views, I made the Virtual Clay Editing Package featured in the video available via the Wiimote Hacking project's download page.
- 04/08/2009: I finally caved; Vrui is now officially available for download from the Vrui download page.
- 03/23/2009: We won an Izzie ("Isadora Duncan Dance Award") for visual design for last fall's COLLAPSE performance. The awards committee might not necessarily agree with this view, but I see it as a ringing endorsement of Vrui and our LiDAR visualization software.
- 03/11/2009: Uploaded video from our recent collaborative visualization experiments to the Immersive 3D Video page.
- 03/09/2009: Updated Wii controller tracking package tarball to again compile under the most recent versions of g++, up to and including 4.3.2.
- 07/01/2008: Dawn Sumner just uploaded several clips from last fall's COLLAPSE performance to youtube, under the CollapseUCD channel.
- 05/27/2008: As of today, my Wii controller tracking video has 100,000 views on youtube. I'm a celebrity!
- 04/24/2008: I just returned from a nanoscience and -engineering workshop, FNANO08, held in Snowbird, Utah. I was invited to talk about ProtoShop, which now seems to be used in DNA origami. I used the opportunity to talk about 3D interaction and immersive environments in general, and to plug the Nanotech Construction Kit in particular. People were intrigued.
- 04/02/2008: Our first KeckCAVES-related NSF proposal just got funded. This is a three-year project titled "CI-TEAM Implementation Project: Enabling Interactive Visual Exploration and Remote Collaboration for the Geosciences and Physical Sciences," funded at a total amount of $920,000.00. This will allow us to extend existing and new KeckCAVES software for education purposes.
- 03/13/2008: Just returned from IEEE VR 2008 in Reno, NV. We held a tutorial on "Virtual Reality in the Physical Sciences," and I demonstrated several Vrui applications during a field trip to the Desert Research Institute in Reno. This also marked the first time I showed my 6-DOF Wiimote tracker in public; there was a bit of interest.
- 03/04/2008: Gerald Bawden held a public lecture about using 3D laser scanning and immersive visualization at California State University, Sacramento, today. He integrated stereoscopic displays of LiDAR data into his talk, using KeckCAVES' passive stereo projection system and the LiDAR viewer. As part of this, Gerald and I were interviewed by Jeffrey Callison on his show "Insight" on Capital Public Radio in Sacramento.
- 09/28/2007: Finished video describing how to use a Nintendo Wii controller as a 6-DOF input device for virtual reality applications. It is uploaded to youtube as Wii Controller for Virtual Reality.
- 02/19/2007: I started uploading a selection of videos about the KeckCAVES VR environment to youtube. Here is the list so far:
- 02/13/2007: We just filmed a news segment about KeckCAVES with help from the UC Davis News Service. The segment will probably air soon on KVIE, Sacramento's PBS affiliate.
- 10/14/2006: Grand opening of the Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences. I helped them install a 3D display and provided applications to run on it (see the KeckCAVES page for details). Funny thing happened: Some wonk from the Desert Research Institute was interviewed for TV news in front of the screen with one of my programs running, pointed at it over his shoulder and said that DRI had helped by donating those visualization applications. My history of not getting proper credit continues.
- 07/01/2006: I started my new job as an assistant project scientist with the Center for Computational Science and Engineering. I am going to continue essentially the same work as before: providing interactive and immersive visualization applications for the analysis of complex 3D data, especially in the Earth sciences. And I still don't have to clean out my old cubicle!
- 06/15/2006: Analucia officially graduated with a Ph.D. in agricultural and environmental chemistry today. Is there a doctor in the house? Yes, two!
- 10/30/2005: Analucia now has her own web page.
- 04/15/2005: Installation of the KeckCAVES VR environment finally started. I have a KeckCAVES page in the Research and Development section.
- 09/15/2004: I left Davis to spend three weeks visiting the Virtual Reality and Reality Reconstruction Lab (VR3Lab) at the Politecnico di Bari in Bari, Italy. We are going to work on the innards of the Vrui toolkit, install Vrui on their Virtual Reality environment, and merge Vrui with the Studierstube VR toolkit. I am mostly working with Drs. Michele Fiorentino, Antonio Uva, and Pietro Renzulli, under the supervision of Prof. Guiseppe Monno.
- 02/23/2004: Several of the images I generated for this web site have been included in the National Science Foundation's Digital Image Library.
- 02/18/2004: I was interviewed for an article in the Calfornia Aggie titled Virtual Geology about the new collaboration between CIPIC and the Department of Geology to construct a fully-immersive four-sided CAVE VR environment. And yet again, I didn't get proper credit...
- 11/19/2003: I provided a nice image for an article in the Calfornia Aggie titled Virtual Awesomeness. You can find the picture here as well. Of course, I didn't get proper credit.
- 09/01/2003 (or somewhere around that time): I will start my new job as a post-doctoral researcher at the Center for Image Processing and Integrated Computing at the University of California, Davis. The best part is that I do not even have to clean out my cubicle.
- 06/17/2003: I graduated from UC Davis' PhD program in computer science. Photographic proof will appear later somewhere on this site.
New Features
- 05/08/2012: New page about the Augmented Reality Sandbox we built as part of an NSF project on informal science education for lake stewardship. Build instructions and complete software will be available for download soon.
- 11/14/2010: New page about Kinect Hacking project in the Research and Development section. We can now buy a pretty decent 3D camera for $150. Driver and 3D reconstruction software available for download.
- 10/02/2008: New page about Low-Cost VR project in the Research and Development section. We can now build a fully immersive, albeit small, VR system for around $6000. Complete shopping list and instructions included.
- 01/05/2008: Released the source code for the Wii controller tracking package under the GNU General Public License.
- 10/02/2007: New page about Wiimote Hacking project in the Research and Development section.
- 02/13/2007: I added a new movie about using virtual reality to the top of the KeckCAVES movie page. It was shot with a hand-held video camera, and shows the immersive nature of the display space much better than the older movies.
- 08/22/2006: I upgraded the texture-based 3D volume renderer to offer three separate transfer function look-up methods, including one based on ARB fragment programs. That means it now runs on ATI graphics cards, as well.
- 08/08/2006: I finally released the source code for my texture-based 3D volume renderer under the GNU General Public License.
- 06/30/2006: I added a page on high-fidelity hardware-accelerated volume rendering using supersampling and good reconstruction filters.
- 04/13/2006: I recently captured some videos of the KeckCAVES VR environment.
- 02/11/2003: Added archive of ECS 120 course web page (the "Introduction to the Theory of Computation" class I taught as an Assistant Instructor in spring quarter 2001) to the Teaching Homepage. It features the course syllabus and a course calendar with all lecture notes available for download in PDF format.
- 01/31/2003: Completely reworked Research and Development Homepage with descriptions of many research projects, and some source code available for download. This section is currently still under heavy construction.
- 01/10/2003: I have received a lot of email recently about the Point-in-Polygon algorithm I describe in my ECS 175 Spring 2000 Homepage. I added another figure to the description to demonstrate that it really works as claimed in all cases.
- 12/21/2001: I added a ton of stuff to the Photo Album.
- 05/21/2001: I have been spending a whopping amount of time in the graphics lab lately. Check out the CubiCam for proof!
- 03/16/2001: I put up a photo gallery documenting the demise of my old car, the advent of my new car, and its first accident (all in 5 days).
- 02/04/2000: Glorious launch of the CubiCam.
- 01/04/2000: I finished my paper about Point-Based Rendering of Arbitrary-Mesh Volumetric Data at Multiple Levels of Resolution.
- 02/16/2000: Today I gave a lecture about Interactive Volume Rendering Using 3D Texture-Mapping Hardware as a stand-in for Dr. Ma while he was in Japan. Because it fits into the course, I also wrote a little pamphlet entitled Sampling Theory 101 about some pitfalls mathematics has in stock for the uncautious volume visualizer.
- 12/27/1999: I published Christian Hofsetz' and my joint paper on "Measuring the Performance of 3D Graphics Architectures."
- 12/10/1999: I have now started to add content to the C++ Corner.
- 12/05/1999: The CIPIC Virtual Lab Tour is coming along very nicely. I converted the whole thing to VRML 2.0; now I can go ahead and add interactivity and some animations, when I find the time.
- 12/01/1999: Added some new anecdotes to the "fun" section of my private homepage.
- 11/09/1999: It has happened - I have gone completely over the edge. I dedicated a web page to "Unfortunate Fortune Cookies."
- 10/31/1999: My ray tracer is now working on the graphics lab's SGI workstations, so I will add new images to the Ray Tracing Gallery every once in a while.
- 10/21/1999: I got around to add the PhD Studies Homepage.
- 10/19/1999: I finally filled in the gaps of my Personal Information page.
- 10/15/1999: I added a Photo Album.
- 08/25/1999: Everything is new! Today I completely re-launched my homepage, combining my obsolete
Universität Karlsruhe (TH) homepage and my out-of-date University of California, Davis, homepage.
Pages In This Section
- Contact Information
- If you want to know how to reach me, look there!
- Directions
- Directions to UC Davis, IDAV, and KeckCAVES.
- Links
- A selection of interesting external links.
- Private Homepage
- Things I do for fun. Java games, ray tracing, C++ classes, Starglider Pro, usenet rantings.
- Research and Development Homepage
- Past and present research projects, papers, experiments, programs, examples.
- PhD Studies Homepage
- Things relevant to my studies at UC Davis. Classes, homework, projects.
- Teaching Homepage
- Everything concerning courses I teach at UC Davis.
