One of the hidden gems I came across at NAB 2016 was on the Epson booth. We typically associate Epson with printers but they also make great projectors. Epson have taken that projector technology and shrunk it down to fit inside a pair of smart AR (Augmented Reality) glasses. The first part of the interview was with Michael Leyva, the Product Manager for their range of Moverio smart glasses, who explained how the Moverio BT-200 glasses worked.
The second part of the interview was a real-time experiment in connecting my 360º rig to the Moverio glasses – something that I’d never tried before and had no idea if it would work or what it would look like. In passing, Mike mentioned that you could plug a micro HDMI cable into the glasses and see what the camera sees. Hmmhhm, I thought, my modded 360º GoPro rig has HDMI out. So I asked Mike if we could plug in my 360º rig and see if it would work. No one had tried this before, but Mike said, “let’s give it a try.”
We messed around with the cables for bit, pressed the buttons and BAM! … up on the Moverio glasses in front of my eyes came the image of what the front facing camera was seeing. WOW, it was really amazing:
(Don’t forget to watch the 360° video using the Google Chrome browser at the highest resolution you can – ideally 4K 2160s. If it doesn’t run smoothly at 2160s come down to 1440s or 1080HD. Click your mouse on the video and drag left and right and up and down to see the scene in 360º spherical.)
If you want to know more about the Epson Moverio AR Smart Glasses check out this link:
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/jsp/Landing/moverio-augmented-reality-smart-eyewear-technology.do?UseCookie=yes
Don’t forget to read my primer article on how to watch 360º videos if you don’t already know.
Cheers,
Neil
P.S. Since posting this PVC article I’ve also heard stirrings about Jim Jannard’s latest project (remember Jim from Oakleys and RED Camera) … well according to Jim’s FaceBook page he’s been secretly working on a stealth “mind numbing” project for the last few years. No one knows for sure what Mr. Disruptive is up to but Forbes speculates that it might be related to VR/AR technologies …. now wouldn’t that be cool: