About asteroids, spaceships, saber fighters and medieval castles. And laboratory equipment is briefly mentioned
Unfortunately, I can no longer date this exactly when I wrote it down, 2023, but it probably has to be in the Late summer 2015 have been. There was a college event where I wore a virtual reality (VR) headset for the first time. I’m totally flashed: me whitethat I am in a completely normal lecture hall, but the tables and chairs have been pushed against the walls. So in the middle of the lecture hall there is a large free area, an area is marked with adhesive tape, where I should stand at the beginning. A board approx. 10 cm wide and approx. 1 cm high, temporarily glued to the floor, extends from the area marked with adhesive tape. In the four corners of the room there are four tripods with antennas, which are used to locate the headset and the controllers very precisely in the room. There are thick cables on the headset. So the colleague puts this headset on me, it’s a bit tedious because of the thick cable – but I’m immediately on a high tower of a medieval castle. My colleague presses a controller into each hand. The entire time that follows, the colleague stands about 1-2 m behind me to make sure that the headset cable that runs to the computer on the wall does not pull the headset off my head or I pull the cable out of the computer draw.
I find it incredible how quickly I accept the optically simulated castle as reality. From the castle battlement I see a narrow bridge that leads to another castle battlement. I step cautiously onto the narrow bridge, below me I can see a 20 m deep abyss. I feel on my feet how narrow the bridge is and I see how deep it goes next to it. I whitethat I must be on this board that is only about 1 cm high, but my head is having a very hard time accepting that reality. The virtuality in front of my eyes is so much more believable! So I carefully balance over to the other castle tower. There I can pick up some barrels and throw them off the tower. As my colleague explains to me later, the trajectory and collisions of the barrels are calculated by a “physics engine”. I find this experience in virtual reality incredibly impressive.
Since 2019 I also use VR headsets for the virtualization of laboratory equipment in my own courses. They have now installed their computer with full computing power and no longer need an external control computer or antennas in the corners of the room for localization, just a WLAN connection. Shortly thereafter, to get to know each other, I try out two or three games, including Beat Saber, which Kathrin has already described here. I have to admit: the spontaneous fascination is huge, but it doesn’t mean that I play one of the games more often or for longer. But I’m not a computer game freak either.
In February 2023 A friend visits me who is very digitally affine and, above all, much more affine with computer games than I am. I show him a VR headset, he tries it out and his reaction reminds me of my first use of such a headset: he is also completely fascinated. So VR has not yet become commonplace. I see him groping around in a virtual space, perceiving the virtual space as reality. He already owns a PS5, and the next day he tells me he’s been put on the waiting list for the PS5’s new VR headset.
(Molinarius)