Microsoft Research Is Working On Multi-Person Virtual Reality

During a talk at SIGGRAPH called “The Renaissance of VR: Are We Going to Do it Right This Time?”, Jaron Lanier from Microsoft Research revealed their new project Comradre. It explores the world of multi-person augmented reality and it different from HoloLens product. A video was shown about several projects developed by PhD interns about multi-person interaction in the virtual world. They have created a mixed reality headset codenamed “Reality Mashers” which is powered by smartphones and laptop computers connected with various sensors for tracking movements. Field of View (FOV) of their headset is greatly increased when compared to HoloLens. They have mentioned that FoV exceeds 60 degrees in all cases.

Some of the experimental applications developed for their new platform are listed below,

• Andrea Stevenson Won of Stanford University is testing the social implications of the technology with a system that highlights physical interactions with virtual effects.
• Judith Amores and Xavier Benavides from the MIT Media Lab created a way for real-world blocks to correspond with virtual objects and animations, offering a way for children to play in mixed reality, even if not everyone is wearing a headset.
• Andrzej Banburski of the Perimeter Institute for Advanced Physics, for example, developed a tool for visualizing mathematical equations.
• Kishore Rathinavel, from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, created a system that allows sound waves to be detected and then shown visually. In one scene from the group’s video, the sound produced by Lanier’s flute playing is shown in mixed reality.

Read more about it in detail from the source below links.