VR technology in armor and APC's?

[almanzo 144]

The norwegian army has a small project using VR to improve orientation and maneuverability in armored vehicles using VR technology.

Simply by using occulus rift and 4 cameras mounted on the hull of the APC, they give the operators of the vehicles 360 degrees view around the vehicle and very accuratly allows maneuvers that else would require the crew to drive with open hatches.

Now, this is at the current time very experimental, but given the time frame of ARMA 3, and the cost of these systems in the future, it would sound reasonable to allow this technology also in ARMA III.

What do you think about this, dear community?

http://www.sweclockers.com/nyhet/17778-norska-armen-kor-stridsvagn-med-oculus-rift

[Sneakson 1]

Awesome.

Makes me wish ARMA was a bit more like MGS4 or some such PMC fantasy where soldiers are individually equipped with lots of experimental technologies and realistic but not based on reality so to speak.

Big armies are slow to adopt new technology. Who knows how long it will actually take to integrate this with durable cameras and software.

I don't see too much need for this exact feature in ARMA though. 3rd person view is just as good.

[almanzo 144]

Awesome.

Makes me wish ARMA was a bit more like MGS4 or some such PMC fantasy where soldiers are individually equipped with lots of experimental technologies and realistic but not based on reality so to speak.

Big armies are slow to adopt new technology. Who knows how long it will actually take to integrate this with durable cameras and software.

I don't see too much need for this exact feature in ARMA though. 3rd person view is just as good.

There are quite alot of servers locking third person, and for people who think 3rd person breaks immersion, this could be a blessing. I would love to have it for backing up with tanks and stuff, or moving around in tight spaces. I never use third person personally.

[andrewza 10]

Probaly not going to hapen. But putting rear faceing cammras and what not wwould be nice.

[lexx 1363]

Rear facing cameras is a good point. Doesn't the Ifrit have a camera pointing to the back? There should be a key to switch on / off a backwards camera with PIP screen, imo.

[andrewza 10]

I was thinking for cars and afv that have rear cammras should display them when you revers. Kind of like some of these new fancy cars.

I know the south african version of the AMV has cammras. So the marshal should have.

[fraczek 4]

Electro-optical distributed aperture systems. There is a lot of research going on them. The F35 has one, there are concepts of them for helicopter pilots (spherical all-around visibility "see through hull" for these tight spot landings anyone?), tanks/APCs (Polish PL-01 concept, the Norwegian off-the-shelf technology demonstrator), even ships. With multispectral imaging these could even allow automatic target/threat acquisition (like the F35 system which should detect missile launches). Interesting technology, and as the Norwegians demonstrated, nothing that couldn't be done with off-the-shelf technology.

Pertaining to land vehicles, it would not supersede commander/gunner remote camera (just because it would be next to impossible to zoom), but would be great for the driver or commander for all-around situational awareness.

In terms of gameplay, imagine a driver's view that would work the same as commander's remote camera, with normal FOV, but where you could look freely around the vehicle using freelook (or TrackIR), and possibly even showing you a virtual overlay of your vehicle's hull. Nothing I expect BI to model themselves (given they didn't even give us multiple viewports for vehicles that have them - simply by pressing NUM pad keys you could change the viewport like in old OFP M113 if I remember correctly - or rear facing cameras even though they are visible on the models themselves), but might be interesting to mod into the game.

In reality though, unlike on a fast moving jet like F35 up in the air, on a land vehicle trodding trough mud and snow, even with the cameras recessed inside the hull, they would be pretty difficult to keep clean and protected from small arms fire, some RCWS real life cameras even don't have wipers. And there could be paralax problems with objects up close, unlike in a jet.

By the way, distributed aperture imaging is nothing quite new - Stanislaw Lem thought about it 40 years ago in his books :)

[theevancat 277]

I was thinking for cars and afv that have rear cammras should display them when you revers. Kind of like some of these new fancy cars.

I know the south african version of the AMV has cammras. So the marshal should have.

Hell, it's not even fancy cars anymore. My dad just bought a pickup with one, and pretty much they're on option on essentially everything. Twenty years in the future and we probably won't be driving our cars at all.

[quickvenge 10]

My wife has this on her car. It's range is short but you have 360 view of what is around the car.

http://www.nissan-global.com/EN/TECHNOLOGY/OVERVIEW/avm.html

[[frl]myke 14]

Not directly related, moving to Offtopic. But damn, interesting concept.