Iwill be heading to San Francisco next week to attend the annual Game Developer’s Conference (GDC), and their newly-differentiated Virtual Reality Developer’s Conference (VRDC) to see what the VR landscape looks like just weeks before the first consumer VR headsets are delivered to their owners. That last point is an interesting one — as huge as VR is right now, nothing has shipped commercially. This should make for a fascinating and somewhat bizarre expo, since none of VR’s critical supporting technologies have been vetted by anyone but a few cloistered developers. A huge, well-established industry can provide a sobering influence and help reign-in preposterous ideas, but such massive markets are also notoriously risk-averse and quick to stifle innovative approaches when deemed too “out there”. At this early stage, VR knows neither the burdens nor the benefits of a mature market. It’s not unlike the Cambrian Explosion, when the world was populated by a surreal bestiary of disparate physical forms that would soon be winnowed down by massive extinction, leaving behind the relatively few phyla that remain today. Good times.

The Cambrian Explosion: When god threw spaghetti at the wall

So which of these specimens will go on to dominate our world and which will be unceremoniously compressed into the dark shale of conference brochures and developer resumes? Here are a few of the exhibitors that I’m looking forward to checking out.

Getting Around in VR

Locomotion is one of the big problems to be solved in VR, and several approaches are currently in development. It’s tough, because humans are huge compared their constituent parts such as heads and hands, so tech that seeks to enable activities like walking and running can’t rely on dainty little IR sensors — you need big, space-eating equipment. Users must feel their legs and body operating naturally, while their vestibular systems must be convinced that they are truly on the move. It’s no small feat, but there are no shortage of companies taking their shot.

Virtuix Omni (Booth 410)

No one in the VR locomotion space has received more press than Virtuix Omni (Cyberith’s Virtualizer is a similar effort). This is a treadmill-sized contraption that buckles the user into a central ring that holds them in-position as they run in place, all while sensing the user’s orientation within the device, which in turn reorients the user’s avatar within their virtual environment (simple as that). This is not a treadmill however, but rather a smooth plastic surface across which the user user slides their feet while wearing special shoe covers to minimize friction. Like so…

Sprinting around a virtual war zone in one of these units would demand some suspension of dignity on my part, and I’d be quick to dismiss it were not for consistently stellar first-hand reviews. I’ll try to keep an open mind.

Tactile Feedback

The sense most missed in VR is definitely touch. Smell is all fine and good but it’s hard to beat the practical utility of feeling the objects with which one interacts. Haptic technology seeks to address that shortcoming by synching mechanical actuators to signals generated in one’s virtual world, thus allowing virtual contact to result in physical sensation. It’s critical technology that’s been with us since the first Nintendo Rumble Pack, but it’s seen some improvements lately, as well as some really bizarre implementations.

Whirlwind VR (Booth 2437)

Promoting a mysterious technology they have dubbed “air haptics”, Whirlwind VR seems to be focussed on blunt environmentals such as rapid heating and cooling, and broad-force effects such as explosive shock waves. That’s pretty much the only info that can be wrung from the web at this point — could be groundbreaking, could be a glorified blowdryer. We’ll see.