Based on emails that we received asking us to show what it looks like from the viewer's perspective, we've decided to post another video. In this video, we are using the same QuickCam webcam but we are now using a Core2 Duo laptop instead of the old Pentium 4 machine. We've also changed the background to simulate the view looking out the window of an Airbus A320. I don't know if the camera shows it too well, but it does look remarkably like you're there looking out into the clouds.

After a few long hours of coding we finally got some success! And we're getting awesome performance on my old P4!

Here's a demo video of what we have accomplished with the Virtual Viewpoint program. We've combined Johnny Lee's 3D display with our OpenCV-based eye tracking code to create our program.

We just need a few days to clean some things up and we'll release the software for all of you to try at home! Stay tuned...

Please do leave us a comment and let us know what you think!

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon this amazing video on youtube about Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the WiiRemote:

How can you not say wow? This Johnny Lee is truly a genius! The guy is the definition of "out of the box" thinking. Who knew that a wii remote could serve such a purpose...and holy batman he's publishing his source code so that people can try it at home?!

As any other tech geek, I had to give this a try right away! I jumped off my seat, quickly blew the dust off my laptop, downloaded the source code and realized I had little problem: I don't own a Nintendo Wii...

Dishing out $250+tx for a console that I don't think I'll be using after this project didn't really appeal to me. There's gotta be another way to do this, yes there must be. So I thought, hey there's no reason why we wouldn't be able to achieve the same kind of effect using a cheap $20 webcam...or is there?

I phoned up my buddy Derek to do a little brainstorming and decided to start this blog. Here we'll keep you updated on our progress in creating a webcam based virtual viewpoint (or wii free desktop VR). Stay tuned...

In the meantime you can check out Johnny Lee's other amazing Wii projets on his project site.