Virtual Reality is cool and all, but it never really took off. Because no matter how cool the cyber world is, if you start walking you’ll bump into a “real” wall soon enough.
So Hiroo Iwata, Hiroshi Tomioka and Hiroaki Yano from the University of Tsukuba in central Japan had a smart idea. Why not make roller shoes that communicates with the VR device and lets you walk on the spot?
The “Powered Shoes” developed by the team is mounted on motorized wheels. For the prototype unit shown in the video above, the shoes are connected by cable to the computer on the user’s back. By controlling both the shoes and the VR headgear, the computer is able to create a virtual landscape that the user can walk freely in, with absolutely no limits!
“It has often been suggested that the best locomotion mechanism for virtual worlds would be walking, and it is well known that the sense of distance or orientation while walking is much better than while riding in a vehicle. However, the proprioceptive feedback of walking is not provided in most virtual environments”, says the researchers.
Imagine walking through your favorite MMORPG with a set of these! Want a set yet?
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