artefact 5

Following on from my last artefact, I decided to keep the software and environment pretty similar and upgraded the hardware side of things. I managed to get hold of the universities old VR headset. It only has a resolution of 600x800 which was not as good as i had hoped but was adequate for what i wanted to test. The headset didn't come with motion tracking so once again i retrofit the gyroscopic mouse to it so that head movement would be interpreted by the game engine.

The first test failed to work as the resolution of the pc was set too high for the headset. so this was lowered and the headset display worked. having the display only at 600x800 pixels, a great deal of quality and clarity is lost.

i used a bluetooth keyboard as another input device to control forward and backward movement however this became quite tricky without being able to see the keys. a better option would have been to possibly use a game pad or joystick.

The benefits of this set up mean that not much room is need for it to function. it is relatively cheap to pick up a headset (around £100 for one from ebay) and is very simple to use. just plug and play. An additional monitor can be used so the practitioner can monitor the patients moves during the therapy and guide them as to what to do.


however using the headset can cause some negative effects. while trying the method out, after about 3 mins i became a bit motion sick and had to remove the headset in order to get back to normal.