Scuba Dive But Avoid Getting Wet

Scuba Dive Without Getting Wet (+Video)

Greg Watry | April 13, 2016

It’s an alien world. Through your “goggles,” you see the water surface rippling above. As you descend to the sandy bottom, which is dotted with seagrass, bubbles gurgle upwards. Sharks and whales swim around. And in the face of the ocean’s immensity, you feel humbled.
Jacques Cousteau, often called the father of scuba diving, once said, “The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”

"The Amphibian SCUBA Diving simulator, a research project from the MIT Media Lab, lets users experience the underwater world through a high presence virtual reality system. The system includes a motion platform, Oculus Rift head-mounted display, snorkel with sensors, leg motion sensors, and gloves that enable motion detection, temperature simulation, and physical feedback of objects. Captured sensor data is fed into a processing unit that converts the users physical motion into virtual movement in the Oculus app." Source: http://arts.mit.edu/dull-senses-expand-mind/

<more at http://www.rdmag.com/articles/2016/04/scuba-dive-without-getting-wet; related articles and links: http://arts.mit.edu/dull-senses-expand-mind/(Dull Your Senses and Expand Your Mind. April 8, 2016) and http://web.media.mit.edu/~djain/project-amphibian.html (AmphibianTerrestrial Scuba Diving Using Virtual Reality. Dhruv Jain, Misha Sra, Jingru Gro, Rodrigo Marques, Raymond Wu, Justin Chiu and Chris Schmandt.  ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2016. [Abstract: SCUBA diving as a sport has enabled people to explore the magnificent ocean diversity of beautiful corals, striking fish, and mysterious wrecks. However, only a small number of people are able to experience these wonders as diving is expensive, mentally and physically challenging, needs a large time investment, and requires access to large bodies of water. Most existing SCUBA diving simulations in VR are limited to visual and aural displays. We propose a virtual reality system, Amphibian that provides an immersive SCUBA diving experience through a convenient terrestrial simulator. Users lie on their torso on a motion platform with their outstretched arms and legs placed in a suspended harness. Users receive visual and aural feedback through the Oculus Rift head-mounted display and a pair of headphones. Additionally, we simulate buoyancy, drag, and temperature changes through various sensors. Preliminary deployment shows that the system has potential to offer a high degree of presence in VR.])>