The below figure shows the VR environment we created to test our Level-Up devices. The user is wearing a headmounted display (Oculus Rift) and is tracked using an optical motion capture system (OptiTrack). A MacBook Pro in the user’s backpack (carried on the front) runs the VR game engine. There are no wired connections to or from the user, allowing the user to walk around freely. During operation, the motion capture system’s tracking software (Arena) sends position data to the game engine via UDP, which in turn sends commands to the Level-Up units via Bluetooth. A simple program running inside of the game engine determines where the user’s next step in the virtual world is expected to come down. By casting a ray downwards at this location, our program determines the height of the terrain, which it sends to the Level-Up units.
