ABSTRACT

This book takes the practicality of other "Gems" series such as "Graphics Gems" and "Game Programming Gems" and provide a quick reference for novice and expert programmers alike to swiftly track down a solution to a task needed for their VR project. Reading the book from cover to cover is not the expected use case, but being familiar with the territory from the Introduction and then jumping to the needed explanations is how the book will mostly be used. Each chapter (other than Introduction) will contain between 5 to 10 "tips", each of which is a self-contained explanation with implementation detail generally demonstrated as pseudo code, or in cases where it makes sense, actual code.

Key Features

  • Sections written by veteran virtual reality researchers and developers
  • Usable code snipits that readers can put to immediate use in their own projects.
  • Tips of value both to readers entering the field as well as those looking for solutions that expand their repertoire.

part Section I|40 pages

The Medium of VR

chapter 1|18 pages

VR as a Medium

ByWilliam R. Sherman

chapter 2|19 pages

VR and Media of Attraction

Design Lessons from History
ByRebecca Rouse

part Section II|108 pages

VR with Game Engines

chapter 3|15 pages

Getting Started with SteamVR and Unity

ByLee Wasilenko

chapter 4|12 pages

UniCAVE

A Distributed Rendering System for Unity3D
ByRoss Tredinnick, Kevin Ponto

chapter 5|16 pages

Using the Kinect for Head-Tracked Perspective and Pointing in Stationary VR Displays

ByJason W. Woodworth, Christoph W. Borst

chapter 7|15 pages

WebXR

Virtual Reality… in the Browser
ByLuis Diego González-Zúñiga, Peter O’Shaughnessy

chapter 8|16 pages

Greyhouse

Building the Neighborhood Coffee Shop in Unreal Engine for VR
ByBooker Smith, David Whittinghill

chapter 9|16 pages

Bridging Scientific Visualization and Unreal VR

ByKees Van Kooten

part Section III|120 pages

Interaction

chapter 10|10 pages

Brownboxing

The Secret to Rapid VR Prototyping
ByShawn Patton

chapter 11|50 pages

Bi-Manual Interaction for Manipulation, Volume Selection, and Travel

Using the Leap Motion, Game Controllers and Mobile Devices
ByElliot Hunt, Rajiv Khadka, Amy C. Banić

chapter 12|17 pages

Effortless 3D Selection through Progressive Refinement

ByDoug A. Bowman, Regis Kopper, Felipe Bacim

chapter 13|14 pages

Travel in Virtual Reality

ByJason Leigh

chapter 14|26 pages

From Painting to Widgets, 6-DOF and Bimanual Input Beyond Pointing

ByBret Jackson, Daniel F. Keefe

part Section IV|78 pages

Agents & Avatars

chapter 15|18 pages

Making Virtual Reality Social

Getting Virtual Humans into Your Virtual Environment
ByAndrew Cordar, Yao Heng, Fatemeh Tavassoli, Jeffrey Wood, Benjamin Lok

chapter 16|32 pages

Building a Social VR App

ByBernie Roehl

chapter 17|26 pages

Avatar Embodiment, Behavior Replication, and Kinematics in Virtual Reality

ByDaniel Roth, Jan-Philipp Stauffert, Marc Erich Latoschik

part Section V|34 pages

Third Person POV Cameras

chapter 18|13 pages

Recording and Replaying Virtual Environments for Development and Diagnosis

ByAnthony Steed, Mingqian Wang, Jason Drummond

chapter 19|7 pages

Capturing Cinematic Shots of Virtual Reality Scenes in Unity

ByAndrew Cunningham, Maxime Cordeil

chapter 20|9 pages

A Stereoscopic 3D View for Virtual Reality Spectators

ByAndrew Guagliardo, Jason Leigh, Ming-Der Yang

part Section VI|40 pages

Virtual Worlds

chapter 21|20 pages

The Utility of Virtual Reality for Science and Engineering

ByKenny Gruchalla, Nicholas Brunhart-Lupo

chapter 22|11 pages

Immersion and Visualizing Artistic Spaces in Virtual Reality

ByMargaret Dolinsky

chapter 23|6 pages

Embodied Montage

Constructing Meaning in Virtual Reality
ByDeniz Tortum, Ainsley Sutherland

part Section VII|30 pages

Advanced Rendering for VR

chapter 24|13 pages

Omnidirectional Stereoscopic Projections for VR

ByJohn E. Stone

chapter 25|14 pages

Volume Lenses for VR

ByJason W. Woodworth, Christoph W. Borst

part Section VIII|62 pages

Perception for Immersion

chapter 26|12 pages

Check Your Work

Evaluating VE Effectiveness Using Presence
ByRichard Skarbez, Mary C. Whitton

chapter 27|19 pages

Misperception of Self-motion and Its Compensation in Virtual Reality

ByFrank Steinicke

chapter 28|27 pages

Exploring Large Environments with Redirected Walking

ByMahdi Azmandian, Rhys Yahata, Evan Suma Rosenberg

part Section IX|56 pages

DIY VR Hardware

chapter 29|13 pages

Building and Interfacing Input and Output Devices

ByKyle Johnsen

chapter 30|21 pages

A Tinkerer’s Perspective on VR Displays

ByJ. Adam Jones

chapter 31|18 pages

Environmental Feedback for VR Systems

ByChauncey E. Frend

part Section X|92 pages

Building the Infrastructure of VR

chapter 32|45 pages

Virtual Reality System Concepts Illustrated Using OSVR

ByRussell M. Taylor II

chapter 33|12 pages

Perspective Projection for VR

ByRobert Kooima

chapter 34|32 pages

Fast and Easy Collision Detection for Rigid and Deformable Objects

ByRene Weller, Gabriel Zachmann