PrioVR: A Full Body Gaming Motion Capture Suit

A current Kickstarter project seeking funding uses real-time motion capture to put your body’s movements inside a video game.  The YEI Technology’s “suit” for real-time in-game motion capture to control your onscreen character, admittedly is a really smart piece of kit, in fact it blew most people away who saw it last year (see video below) and now there is actually a chance it will hit the consumer market, with a Kickstarter project.

The system is called PrioVR and it consists of a series of inertial sensors such as accelerometers and gyroscopes which are strapped to the player’s body to provide “360 degrees of unfettered low-latency real-time motion capture without the need for cameras, optics, line of sight, or special environments.”  It then captures motion data directly from the body and sends it wirelessly from the user.  It can be used in any environment, indoors or outdoors.  It will become available in two versions, the PrioVR Lite with 10 sensors, two on each limb, one on the lower back, and one on the back of the head and the PrioVR Pro, which comes with 16 sensors, three on each limb, three on the back, and one on the back of the head.

Each system consists of the sensor units, which contain the low-power inertial sensors that capture motion data and calibrate and error-correct it on the fly; the input unit which houses buttons and a pin-header interface that allows the connection of external inputs such as trigger switches; the wearable hub unit, which carries the battery and aggregates the sensor data; and finally the communication base station, which receives the sensor data from the hub unit.  It is also compatible with the Oculus Rift and any head-mounted display, such as Sony’s upcoming PlayStation 4 headset.

PrioVR’s developers kit will include support for major game engines such as CryEngine, UDK, and Unity and all systems will be fully expandable and come with the SDK and API to make it easier for developers to use.  Currently, only developer kits are being offered as Kickstarter rewards. In the vein of the Oculus Rift, it will need a bit of work to be consumer ready. An early-bird pledge of $450 will get you the PrioVR Lite developer kit, and an early-bird pledge of $625 will get you the PrioVR Pro developer kit.  Either way is not that expensive for a chance of immersion into an interactive VR world.  Anyone fancy a real game of Tron?

[Image via: cnet and  noticebrd]

SOURCE: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57601807-1/priovr-a-full-body-mo-cap-suit-for-gaming/