Research VR Podcast - The Science & Design of Virtual Reality

Latest Episodes:

Final Episode: Underwater Panoramic Filmmaking w/ Casey Sapp (CEO of VRTUL) Apr 01, 2021

Show notes

The Science and Design behind Virtual Reality

Shownotes

Casey Sapp, the CEO of VRTUL, an high-end underwater panoramic filming company, joins Azad to talk about the difficulties of creating VR experiences deep in the ocean.

This is the final episode of the Research VR Podcast! Much thanks to all of our guests and listeners for being with us for the last 5 years!

Episode begins at 11:50 if you'd like to skip over the announcements!

Topics discussed:

Dealing with syncing high FPS + high resolution cameras
Dealing with lens distortion while filming underwater
Difficulties of finding sharp, wet lenses
Deep sea mining
The current state of the VR film industry

recorded in July 2020. - Best of Research VR Podcast episodes -

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Guest: Casey Sapp

Research VR: Azad Balabanian, Petr Legkov

Podcast: Research VR Podcast

Research VR Community Links:

Discord Community Channel: https://discord.gg/rrgnxEk

Twitter: @ResearchVRcast

Youtube: ResearchVR Podcast

Patreon: Patreon Page

Email: researchvrcast@gmail.com

Active Depth Cameras w/ Jeff Powers (Cofounder Occipital, Arcturus Industries) - 101 Aug 18, 2020

Show notes

The Science and Design behind Virtual Reality

Shownotes

Jeff Powers, Cofounder of Occipital and Arcturus Industries joins Azad to discuss active depth cameras.

Topics discussed:

The market for depth cameras in 2014 for consumers, developers.
Why they focused on mobile-first with the Structure sensor.
Google's Tango project not being adopted.
Building a developer friendly ecosystem for 3rd party companies.
A general Perceptual layer in software that can take any input.
The economies of scale with new and niche hardware.
Did Tesla pick the right choice with cameras vs LIDAR?
Building the Room View 3D with Valve
Interesting applications of the Index's dual cameras.
VR eating up AR's use cases in the short term.

recorded in July 2020. - Best of Research VR Podcast episodes -

Twitter

Guest: Jeff Powers

Research VR: Azad Balabanian, Petr Legkov

Podcast: Research VR Podcast

ResearchVR Community Links:

Discord Community Channel: https://discord.gg/rrgnxEk

Twitter: @ResearchVRcast

Youtube: ResearchVR Podcast

Patreon: Patreon Page

Email: researchvrcast@gmail.com

Episode 100! The original cast retrospective on 4 years of VR - 100 Mar 26, 2020

Show notes

The Science and Design behind Virtual Reality

Shownotes

Petr Legkov, Krzysztof Izdebski, and Azad Balabanian, the three cofounders of the podcast come back together to discuss the last four years of VR, the podcast, and their lives.

Topics discussed:

Why/how the podcast started
revisiting old arguments
retrospection on VR industry over 4 years

Retrospective on:

locomotion theories
roomscale gaming not being the goal
best value VR headset
European tech glass ceiling
focusing on learning

Showlinks:

recorded in March 2020

- Best of Research VR Podcast episodes -

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Hosts: Azad Balabanian, Petr Legkov, Krzysztof Izdebski

Podcast: Research VR Podcast

ResearchVR Community Links:

Discord Community Channel: https://discord.gg/rrgnxEk

Twitter: @ResearchVRcast

Youtube: ResearchVR Podcast

Patreon: Patreon Page

Email: researchvrcast@gmail.com

Culture and Behavior in Social VR (Jessica Outlaw + Rebecca Hyman) - 99 Feb 21, 2020

Show notes

The Science and Design behind Virtual Reality

Shownotes

Jessica Outlaw, a culture & behavior researcher and Rebecca Hyman, a mental health therapist to discuss human culture in-and-out of VR, VR marketing demographics, as well as representation in media.

Topics discussed:

Building non-violent cultures in VR
VR's target demographics and identities
The unreleased Intel VR HMD's marketing campaign
The border between messing-around vs griefing/harassment
Reddit's subreddit self moderation framework
The basics of culture in a community

Showlinks:

Intel HMD commercial
Intel Engineer twitter writeup thread
build your own social network [https://runyourown.social/]
Jessica's interview with Kent Bye on Voice of VR
Lucas Rizzotto episode on the Research VR Podcast
Rebecca Hyman's website

Jessica Outlaw's Series on 9-Steps to Building a Strong Culture:

recorded in Sep 2019

- Best of Research VR Podcast episodes -

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Guests: Jessica Outlaw, Rebecca Hyman

Hosts: Azad Balabanian, Petr Legkov

Podcast: Research VR Podcast

ResearchVR Community Links:

Discord Community Channel: https://discord.gg/rrgnxEk

Twitter: @ResearchVRcast

Youtube: ResearchVR Podcast

Patreon: Patreon Page

Email: researchvrcast@gmail.com

Sketchfab's omnipresnce in the 3D world (Alban Denoyel, CEO of Sketchfab) - 98 Jan 30, 2020

Show notes

The Science and Design behind Virtual Reality

Cofounder and CEO of Sketchfab, Alban Denoyel joins Azad to talk about all things 3D on the web.

Topics discussed:

Why sketchfab was created
Why the large tech companies can't compete against Sketchfab's community
The importance of having downloading/remixing functionality
Why it’s difficult to be build both a community and a store
What’s the point of 3D reality capture?
Sketchfab texture streaming article
Sketchfab ground shadows
Twitter feud between Alban and Azad

recorded in Oct 2019

Best of Research VR Podcast episodes

Twitter

Guests: Alban Denoyel

Hosts: Azad Balabanian, Petr Legkov

Podcast: Research VR Podcast

ResearchVR Community Links:

Discord Community Channel: https://discord.gg/rrgnxEk

Twitter: @ResearchVRcast

Youtube: ResearchVR Podcast

Patreon: Patreon Page

Email: researchvrcast@gmail.com

AR Superpowers, VR in the 90's, & Data Privacy (Avi Bar-Zeev, ex-Apple/MS/Disney) - 97 Oct 16, 2019

Show notes

The Science and Design behind Virtual Reality

Google Earth, Hololens, and Disney VR pioneer Avi Bar-Zeev joins Azad to share his perspective of the 3D/VR industry over the last few decades and make predictions of the near future.

Topics discussed & showlinks:

working on early Disney's Aladdin’s Magic Carpet Ride VR experience (Road To VR article),
solving early 3D graphics and texture size issues
Location Based Entertainment business models not working
early CRT VR monitors
creating Google Earth (formerly Keyhole) and the KML format
Al Gore's Digital Earth
Avi Interview in Cartographica
despite setbacks, still being bullish about AR
Avi's article on Vice - The Eyes Are the Prize: Eye-Tracking Technology Is Advertising's Holy Grail
Communication in AR being THE selling point
Eye-tracking, security, and biometric data
A framework to think about data privacy for the average user
Which business models prioritize data exploitations and which dont?
The dangers of AR/VR data being used in totalitarian regimes for surveillance
Is using public data for research an ethical issue?

recorded in July 2019

Best of Research VR Podcast episodes

Twitter

Guests: Avi Bar-Zeev

Hosts: Azad Balabanian, Petr Legkov

Podcast: Research VR Podcast

ResearchVR Community Links:

Discord Community Channel: https://discord.gg/rrgnxEk

Twitter: @ResearchVRcast

Youtube: ResearchVR Podcast

Patreon: Patreon Page

Email: researchvrcast@gmail.com

CTRL-kit's Intent-Based Finger Input (Jesslyn Tannady, Tech. Prod. Manager @ CTRL-labs) - 96 Sep 11, 2019

Show notes

The Science and Design behind Virtual Reality

Jesslyn Tannady joins us to talk about CTRL-Labs's advancements in BCI's, finger tracking, and input methods for games and VR/AR.

Topics discussed / showlinks:

Holo-SEXTANT: an Augmented Reality Planetary EVA Navigation Interface
CTRL-Kit, hand tracking and intent tracking
Interesting use cases:
Controlling robots in an intuitive way with intent
Typing for VR/AR
Palmaris Longus - vestigial muscle
Content Aware Stretch meme
using it as a game controller
thoughts on Neuralink

recorded in May 2019

Best of Research VR Podcast episodes

Twitter

Guests: Jesslyn Tannady, CTRL-labs

Hosts: Azad Balabanian, Petr Legkov

Podcast: Research VR Podcast

ResearchVR Community Links:

Discord Community Channel: https://discord.gg/rrgnxEk

Twitter: @ResearchVRcast

Youtube: ResearchVR Podcast

Patreon: Patreon Page

Email: researchvrcast@gmail.com

Rec Room's Origins and its UGC Future (Shawn Whiting, Community Designer @ Against Gravity) - 95 Jun 13, 2019

Show notes

The Science and Design behind Virtual Reality

Shawn Whiting, the Community Designer at Against Gravity joins Petr and Azad to discuss the origins and the future of one of the most popular games in VR: Rec Room.

Topics discussed:

origins of Rec Room as "WiiSports of VR"
the variety of results when building a "networked VR app"
handling major updates to a multi-platform VR app
Creating the written and unwritten rules of social spaces
self-moderation vs moderator intervention
Creative tools to build user generated rooms
Deciding when to use user-feedback and when not to
Differences between VR players vs 2D screen players
currency and in-game economy

recorded in April 2019

Best of Research VR Podcast episodes

Showlinks

Twitter

Guests: Shawn Whiting

Hosts: Az Balabanian, Petr Legkov

Podcast: Research VR Podcast

ResearchVR Community Links:

Discord Community Channel: https://discord.gg/rrgnxEk

Twitter: @ResearchVRcast

Youtube: ResearchVR Podcast

Patreon: Patreon Page

Email: researchvrcast@gmail.com

Building Leap Motion's "Project North Star" Kits (Noah Zerkin, PM at Noah Labs) - 094 May 16, 2019

Show notes

The Science and Design behind Virtual Reality

Leap Motion's open source Project North Star has been fascinating VR/AR enthusiasts for the last year, but due to the scarcity of sourcing the components, finding a fully built kit is quite rare.

Noah Zerkin, based out of Shenzhen, China has been focusing on fabricating and building the necessary components to build kits. He joins the podcast to chat about the headset, its advantages, and the challenges of what goes into building one.

Video podcast: https://youtu.be/G010rKFJMyY

Topics discussed:

the benefits of vertical field of view
the various ways of positional tracking for the North Star
The culture of Shenzhen and how people in China respond to AR in public

recorded in Feb 2019

Best of Research VR Podcast episodes

Showlinks

Sergey Brin on the subway wearing Google Glass

Video podcast

Project Northstar Kit - Buy

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Guests: Noah Zerkin

Hosts: Az Balabanian, Petr Legkov

Podcast: Research VR Podcast

ResearchVR Community Links:

Discord Community Channel: https://discord.gg/rrgnxEk

Twitter: @ResearchVRcast

Youtube: ResearchVR Podcast

Patreon: Patreon Page

Email: researchvrcast@gmail.com

Livestreaming Mixed Reality with LIV (Dr Doom & Ruu, Cofounder & CTO) - 093 Apr 03, 2019

Show notes

The Science and Design behind Virtual Reality

The cofounder and CTO of LIV, Dr. Doom and Ruu join us to talk about the past, present, and future of green screen Mixed Reality and livestreaming VR games.

Topics discussed: