Virtual Reality Systems

Headset Development Kit

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Step 1: Use an ultrasonic knife to remove excess plastic from the enclosure.

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Step 2a: Begin assembling the display by connecting the HDMI driver board.

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Step 2b: Affix the LCD panel to the acrylic plate with double-sided tape.

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Step 2c: Fold over the HDMI driver board without damaging the flex circuit.

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Step 2d: Affix the HDMI driver board to the acrylic plate and attach the cables.

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Step 2e: Test the display.

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Step 3a: Place the display into the enclosure and align the center of the screen.

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Step 3b: Tune the distortion correction so that lines appear straight.

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Step 4a: Assemble the IMU components.

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Step 4b: Place the IMU components into the enclosure.

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Step 4c: Tune the IMU filtering.

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Step 5a: Create a custom ARToolKit marker and attach it to the HMD.

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Step 5b: Measure the marker offset, relative to the halfway point between the lenses.

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Step 5c: Tune the positional tracking.

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Step 5d: Put everything together to complete your own HMD.

❮ ❯

Students will be provided a kit to build their own head-mounted display, including an LCD, an HDMI driver board, an inertial measurement unit (IMU), lenses, an enclosure, and all cabling. Kits must be returned at the end of the course. All software will be developed through the homework assignments. Component details are listed below. The headset kit will be updated for Winter 2025, replacing the VR enclosure with an HRBOX2 AR headset.

Final Projects

Eye Tracking for VR Gaming by Alex Zhang

Virtual Batting Cage by Dylan Hayre

VR Galaxy Tour by Natalia Abrosimova and Wenqing Lan

Foveated Ray Tracing by Frank Qin

Finger Tracking using Magnetometers by Alexander Mastrangelo and Paul Yoo

360° Vision using FOV Minification by Neil Sorens

Ear Hands: Spatial Audio for VR Gaming by Christie Zhao and Thomas Hsu

Stereoscopic Ray Tracing for VR by Michal Piszczek

AR Basketball Training by Eugene Jahn

Inverse Kinematics and Full-Body Tracking for VR by Terrell Strong

Exploring Wide-Field-of-View VR Headsets by Andrew Wei Daoyi Zhu

3D Drawing in VR by Daniel Lyu and Lily Zhao

Bird-like Flight in VR by Rory Soiffer and Everett Cheng

VR Volume Rendering by Nguyen Duc Duong, Xiao Liang, and Jeffery Tian

Crime Scene Investigation by Zhu Li and Weihan Ji

Exploring Two-Handed Interactions by Andrew Rudasics

Exploring Pupil Tracking by Youssef Ben Taleb and Zeynel C. Gurbuz

Training Archery Form using Augmented Reality by Matthew He

Spatial Audio with Any Headphones by Yurii Halychanskyi and Sayuj Raj Shahi

Bird Hunt VR by Romero Hutapea, Ho Lun Yeung, and Nok Hin Tong

Rendering Physical Objects in VR by Jason Langley

Introducing Chess En Garde by Julia Wang and Noah Krohngold

Arranging Furniture using Mixed Reality by Tyler Schwitters

Occlusion Handling in Augmented Reality by Devesh Sarda and Neel Jog

Jelly Physics: Soft-Body Dynamics by Amrutha Srikanth and Sandy Cheng

Ethereal: AI-Powered VR Adventure by Ruslan Bekniyazov and Shaan Singh Chattrath

Cornucopia of Stories by Aditya Nayak and Kevin Kumar

Converting 2D Images to 3D Anaglyphs by Varich Boonsanong and Ivy Ding

The T.R.U.S.T. Game by Adrian Dinh

Homework 7: Learning SLAM by Yueqian Zhang and Evan Zhao

A VR Horror Experience Utilizing Eye Tracking by Yifan Shen

Creating Game Scenes in VR by Alaina Olson and Richard Todd Schindler

Holographic Whiteboard by Davin Seju and Wei Jun Tan

Interactive Fluid Simulations in VR by Andy Danforth

Studying Binocular Rivalry in VR by Ash Luty, Deepti Ramani, and Nik Smith

High Spatial Acuity Haptics by Peyton Rapo And Alexander Fernandez

Creating VR Content using Generative AI by Brian Liang

An Autostereoscopic Display Prototype by Elijah Matamoros

❮ ❯

Three weeks of this course are set aside for student projects. Through these efforts, students can apply their new knowledge in AR/VR systems to applications they find personally engaging. For example, in past editions of this course, students developed demonstrations of immersive VR gaming, medical imaging, computer-vision-based tracking, haptics devices and engines, autostereoscopic displays, and more. Review the slideshow above and consult the Winter 2020 and Spring 2023 course websites for detailed examples.

Schedule

Assignments

Students will complete five homeworks and a final project. Each homework is accompanied by a lab (a tutorial video). Labs must be completed before starting the homeworks. We encourage formatting written portions of homework solutions using the CSE 493V LaTeX template. Students must submit a one-page final project proposal and a final report. Final reports may take the form of a website or a conference manuscript.

Grading and Collaboration

The grading breakdown is as follows: homeworks (70%) and final project (30%).

Assignments are due by midnight on the due date. Each student is granted a pool of four late days. Up to two late days can be used on any given homework, with instructor permission required for longer extensions. Beyond permitted delays, late assignments are marked down at a rate of 25% per day. That is, if a student fails to turn in an assignment on time it is worth 75% for the first 24 hours after the deadline, 50% for the next 24 hours, 25% for the next 24 hours, and then it is worth nothing after that. Exceptions will only be given with prior instructor approval.

While the headset development kits will be shared, students are expected to individually write their homework solutions. Students may collaborate to discuss concepts for the homeworks, but are expected to be able to explain their solutions for the purposes of grading by the instructor and TAs. Final project groups can be as large as three students, subject to instructor approval.

Textbooks and Resources

Lectures are supplemented by course notes, journal articles, and textbook chapters. The following textbooks will be used for CSE 493V, which are freely available to University of Washington students via the links below.

• Marschner and Shirley. Fundamentals of Computer Graphics. 4th Edition. CRC Press, 2015.
• LaValle. Virtual Reality. Cambridge University Press, 2016.

All software will be developed using JavaScript, WebGL, and GLSL. Students should review the following tutorials and online resources to prepare for the labs, homeworks, and final projects.

• w3schools.com: JavaScript Tutorial
• WebGL using three.js: Slides, Video, Documentation, and Source
• kronos.org: WebGL 1.0 API Quick Reference Card

Office Hours and Contacts

We encourage students to post their questions to Ed Discussion. The teaching staff can also be contacted directly at . The instructor and TAs will hold weekly office hours at the following times.

• Douglas Lanman (Wednesdays, 5:50pm to 6:30pm, CSE2 G10)
• Evan Zhao (TBD)
• Shaan Chattrath (TBD)