Rhymes of History - Virtual Reality Technologies
In explaining Rhymes of History, Thornburg (2014h) presents
a quote attributed to Mark Twain, “History may not repeat itself, but it sure
rhymes a lot”. Thornburg goes on to tell us that the prospective of Rhymes of
History differs from Evolutionary Technology, where as, Evolution, within the
Rhymes of History, may be taking place, the affect or impact of a new
development rekindles something from the distant past (Laureate Education,
2014h). McLuhan’s Tetrad Model also speaks to this rekindling or retrieving of
distant technologies of the past.
The affect, that the following four technologies rekindles
is that of Virtual Reality or the simulation of a three-dimensional appearance or setting that
can be interactive in an outwardly real or objective way by the user operating the
specific technology.
This blog post will illustrate the major Rhymes of Historic
technologies that correspond with Virtual Reality from the current 21st
Century Virtual Reality Goggles through two Rhymes of Historic Wearable
Technology and one observable technology dating back to the 19th
Century. Of course, there are other Rhymes of Historical significance that
could have been included in this blog post, however I choose these four
technologies because they really stood out in popular use.
Virtual Goggles
An example of a current technology that represents the
Rhymes of History are Virtual Reality (VR) Goggles and Headsets. A virtual
reality headset is a wearable device that you place over your eyes like a pair
of goggles (Petry & Huber, 2015). This type of device blocks out all
external light and shows the user an image on high-definition screens in front
of their eyes. The objective of VR goggles is to engross the user in a virtual
simulation. In VR simulations, the user’s point of view is the character’s
point of view; most VR headsets track the user’s head movement, so that
wherever one looks, their simulated personality looks, too. If done well, the
user will feel like they are interactive inside the simulation. VR goggles
use two video feeds sent to one headset display, one video feed per eye. There
are also lenses which are placed between the user’s eyes and the headset’s pixels
which is why the devices are often called goggles (Petry & Huber, 2015). In
addition, the individual video feeds are adjustable to correct the distance
between the user’s eyes which differs for each person.
For our purpose of Rhymes of Historical perspective, the
most important feature of this technology is that the goggle’s lenses focus and
reshapes the picture for each eye and creates a stereoscopic 3D image by
angling the two 2D images to mimic how each of our two eyes views the world
ever-so-slightly differently (Nurkkala & Kalermo, 2015). For quick
reference, close one of your eyes, to see individual objects dance about from
side to side, then do the same with your other eye and you will understand the
idea behind this technology’s concept. The first prototype of this current type
of technology was developed in 2012 by Palmer Luckey and is called the Oculus
Rift. Facebook acquired Oculus Rift for two billion dollars in 2014. The
education and medical fields are seeing more inclusive use of VR Headsets to simulate
practical experiences, experiments and operations that students cannot perform
in real life situations (Cassard & Sloboda, 2016; Estes, Dailey-Hebert,
& Choi, 2016; Yelshyna et al., 2016).
Oculus Rift - Step in
to The Rift - Reveal Trailer
Double-Click on Video to Play
https://youtu.be/fHpxcCeK1vs
GAF 3D View-Master
VR Goggles, like the Oculus Rift, rekindles the memory of
one of the most popular American educational toys from the 1970’s, the General Aniline
& Film (GAF) 3D View-Master. The View-Master was acquired by GAF in 1966,
from the its original owners, the Sawyer Corporation, who introduced this
technology to the world in 1939, at the New York World’s Fair. Like VR Goggles,
the View Master employs the same premise of focusing each lens to reshape the
picture for each eye to create a stereoscopic 3D image by angling the two 2D
images to mimic how each of our two eyes views the world ever-so-slightly
differently. You will see this same theme running through all of the iteration
of devices along this technological trail of Rhymes of History. More recently,
the Mattel Toy Company has envisioned and reinvented the original View-Master using
its newly patented hardware coupled with the users’ Android or iOS Smartphone
to create educational and gaming VR simulations much like VR Goggles, in a more
cost efficient way. Below are three videos looking at the 1970’s version of the
GAF View Master and the newly minted Mattel View-Master 360°, followed by a
comparison video of both technologies.
1971 GAF View Master
Commercial with Henry Fonda & Jodie Foster
Please use this link
in your browser
https://youtu.be/O63-XGBwn-k
Mattel’s View-Master 360°
Experience – How it works!
Double-Click on Video to Play
https://youtu.be/ADfThVM1TsE
Double-Click on Video to Play
https://youtu.be/yyca0sHKkJ8
The Stereoscope
The 1970’s GAF View-Master, in turn, rekindles the memory of
a Victorian optical device identified as the Stereoscope. This 19th
century technology created an illusion of 3-D using two side-by-side
photographs of the same object taken at slightly different angles and viewed
together, creating an impression of depth and solidity. Like GAF’s View-Master
and today’s Oculus Rift, in the Stereoscope we see the same common theme of
Rhymes of History in the premise of focusing each lens to reshape the picture
for each eye to create a stereoscopic 3D image by angling the two 2D images to
mimic how each of our two eyes views the world ever-so-slightly differently. The
1861 revised and cost efficient Holmes Stereoscope, reimagined by Oliver
Wendell Holmes, was said to be the most popular version of this type of technology.
Panoramic Paintings
The Stereoscope was preceded by late 18th and early
19th century Panoramic paintings. This technological Rhyme of
History does not use wearable hardware, but nevertheless can be envisioned as
starting the journey of virtual reality simulation. If one focuses more
precisely on the scope of virtual reality as a means of crafting the illusion
that they are present somewhere that they are not, then the earliest effort toward
virtual reality would be the 360-degree murals or panoramic paintings (Melman, 2013).
These paintings were envisioned to fill the viewer’s complete field of vision,
making them feel present in the midst of some historical event or scene. Here
is a very interesting video of a contemporary artist’s take on creating
panoramic paintings.
Yadegar Asisis
panorama pictures | euromaxx
Double-Click on Video to Play
https://youtu.be/7oynuh5HnDE
In conclusion, what will be the next iteration in the
succession of these VR Wearable Rhymes of History? Could the next Rhyme be that
of some sort of implanted VR chip on our body or linked to our DNA, creating
our ‘Virtual Self’? If so, we should be ready for an entirely new branch of
psychology to work with those of us who start believing we are actually our
“virtual’ self.
Resources
To find more in-depth information on the Oculus Rift VR
Goggles please follow this link
https://www.oculus.com/en-us/rift/
To rekindle the history of the original 3D View-Master,
please use this link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View-Master
If you are interested in learning more about one of the
least expensive, but still noteworthy and fun set of VR Goggles, please
navigate over to Mattel’s View-Master 360° Experience by using this link: http://www.view-master.com/en-us
To explore the history of Panoramic Paintings, please
refer to this link:
http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/library/alumni/online_exhibits/digital/2003/panorama/new_001.htm
References
Cassard, A., & Sloboda, B. W. (2016). Faculty perception
of virtual 3-D learning environment to assess student learning. Emerging
Tools and Applications of Virtual Reality in Education, 48.
Estes, J. S., Dailey-Hebert, A., & Choi, D. H. (2016).
Integrating technological innovations to enhance the teaching-learning process.
Emerging Tools and Applications of Virtual Reality in Education, 277.
Laureate Education (Producer). (2014h). David
Thornburg: Rhymes of history [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Melman, B. (2013). The power of the past history and
modernity in the. Victorian World, 466.
Nurkkala, V. M., & Kalermo, J. (2015, January).
Development of a tool for semi-automatic creation of virtual environments. In Proceedings
of the International Conference on Modeling, Simulation and Visualization
Methods (MSV) (p. 35). The Steering Committee of The World Congress in
Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Applied Computing (WorldComp).
Petry, B., & Huber, J. (2015, March). Towards effective
interaction with omnidirectional videos using immersive virtual reality
headsets. In Proceedings of the 6th Augmented Human International Conference
(pp. 217-218). ACM.
Yelshyna, D., Gago, M. F., Bicho, E., Fernandes, V., Gago,
N. F., Costa, L., ... & Sousa, N. (2016). Compensatory postural adjustments
in Parkinson’s disease assessed via a virtual reality environment. Behavioural
brain research, 296, 384-392.
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