Fantastic underwater world for inhabitants of large cities (such as me) is available only in TV shows of NGC, PC games and Screenservers. And only once or twice during holidays we are planning our vacations for admiring the beauty of underwater world. But soon things can change. And for the diving among coral reefs we’ll not have to go to sea.
With the new device developed by German Institute for Applied Information Technology Fraunhofer (Fraunhofer FIT), you can swim in an empty swimming pool, but it would seem that around you are tropical fishes, algae and corals.
Building such a system, was a great challenge because it was necessary to ensure that the computer and display are waterproof, as well as their pressure resistance when submerged. But German scientists succeeded brilliantly.
The prototype consists of a backpack with a mobile computer system for determining coordinates of swimmers and masks and equipped with a special display and camera. The latter transmits visual field of human computer. He also guided by the testimony of the inertial and magnetic orientation of the system, imposes real-world perspective on the necessary virtual objects. What their position exactly correlated with the actual movement of people under water. During the dive is observed bare walls of the pool and the virtual display with the fish-mask. As a result, swimmers think that they are moved to a fantastic world.
The authors have created a demo of the game. There are six, and each is unique faunas available for “diving”. In one of these Mirko hidden chest with treasures. But you can open it just by typing the code. Part of this code are scattered in other islands, but the hidden in the «magic mussels». And all of this – in a completely empty the pool.
Such a search of treasures, only demonstrates the potential of new items. Its founders believed that these submarine games can be a «magnet» aquaparks.
But the development has far more serious scope, as noted in a press release of the Institute: Training of professional divers and divers engaged in the repair and inspection of underwater structures. Virtual World in the pool may be a copy of weightless drilling platforms, dams, or pillars of the bridge.