Hasso-Plattner-Institut
Prof. Dr. Patrick Baudisch
 

TurkDeck: Physical Virtual Reality Based on People

Cheng,Lung-Pan, Roumen, Thijs , Rantzsch, Hannes, Köhler, Sven, Schmidt, Patrick, Robert, Kovacs, Jasper, Johannes, Kemper, Jonas, Baudisch, Patrick

TurkDeck is an immersive virtual reality system that repro- duces not only what users see and hear, but also what users feel. TurkDeck produces the haptic sensation using props, i.e., when users touch or manipulate an object in the virtual world, they simultaneously also touch or manipulate a corresponding object in the physical world. Unlike previ- ous work on prop-based virtual reality, however, TurkDeck creates these physical representations on the fly by making a group of human workers present and operate the props only when and where the user can actually reach them.

 

TurkDeck is a prop-based virtual reality system that let’s users not only (a) see and hear a virtual world, but also (b) feel it. Conceptually, the user is in a fully populated physical world. (c) In reality, however, TurkDeck’s physical room is almost empty. “Human actuators” present and operate props only when and where the user can actually reach them. (d) By reusing generic props, TurkDeck minimizes the required props to what human actuators can carry, still allows producing virtual worlds of arbitrary size.

The boards are a generic prop and can be arranged in a large variety of shapes

The instruction interface: Human Actuators see projections on the floor with their number and shape of the board. They are informed about a new instruction using audio. The player is protected from this audio using noise cancelling headphones which play the game sounds to improve immersion