Someone found a way to stop you kicking your cat when you’re in VR

By Hugh Langley

Virtual reality still has a few practical problems to work through, such as what to do about pets that get in the way while you’re violently flailing like an upturned beetle.

It’s especially problematic for the HTC Vive and its room scale technology, which lets you walk around a small space.

Ray Marcilla, a driver developer at Microsoft, has taken a step toward solving the problem using an old Kinect sensor and an app.

It’s not a polished solution, but Marcilla promises that it should work as an effective warning should any pets enter the room when you’re using the Vive

Contiguous blobs

Using the Kinect v1 sensor, Cat Detector scans for large “contiguous blobs”, and emits a loud warning sound when it detects more than one (one of them being you, obviously) in the room. It will continue to alert you until one of the blobs disappears.

Marcilla explains how you set it up: “Make sure it has a clear view of any possible places a cat would enter the space, and immediately pause the game and look around if a warning sound plays, since cats tend to quickly slip into your shadow/out of sight.”

However, its creator …read more

Source:: techradar.com – Gaming