What do ordinary people need to enter the metasverse? STEPVR gives the answer: 3 square meters.
In this 3 square meters, a light head display weighing about 150G, a vibrating vest, a pair of catcher's gloves, plus omnidirectional motion system, combine to form the world's first "entry to the Meta-universe".
On May 26, VR technology research and development and equipment product supplier STEPVR officially released the name of "Guocheng no. 1" entry to the meta-universe, the above equipment are self-developed and self-produced.
STEPVR said that in order to be different from the existing VR all-in-one machine, helmet and other devices on the market to bring audio-visual experience, STEPVR is committed to restoring the "five senses", so that users can truly immerse in the virtual world.
Guo Cheng, founder of STEPVR, answered the questions of reporters from The National Business Daily at an online conference, saying that at present the Guocheng 1 is mainly a B-end product, and there will be corresponding C-end products in the future. It is said that one of guosung 1's major goals is to bring VR arena into the home and allow ordinary people to enter the meta-universe at home.
Looking back on the development process of guocheng 1 and imagining the future it will open up, Guo said: "When you open the gate of the meta-universe, there is a long wooden bridge to walk, and some people lag behind in the middle, and some people cut corners. When you open the gate, there will be a long snow trail."
"Let users smell the fragrance of the earth"
Nine years of accumulation, 100 engineers' efforts, 24,750 hours, 23,518,900 lines of code and more than 88 patents, Guo Cheng used a set of data to show the "hard-won" guo-cheng 1.
How to overcome the vertigo that VR devices often bring? This is STEPVR's first step in developing gukseung 1.
STEPVR has been developing and implementing accurate laser positioning technology since 2015. "When the picture doesn't match the motion, the user feels dizzy. So we need to know the user's movement per millimeter to match the human eye's resolution of the real world." Guo Cheng explains.
It is reported that As early as 2019, STEPVR launched a large space multi-player, multi-prop VR e-sports platform "Future battlefield", through laser positioning and motion capture technology to achieve millimeter-level positioning accuracy, for the development of Guocheng no. 1 laid a foundation.
Guo said at the press conference that the guoceng 1 can truly restore the "five senses" of vision, hearing, touch, smell and vestibular balance for users in a virtual world, and realize the transfer from a large space to a small space, allowing users to experience an infinite virtual world in a small space of about 3 square meters.
"If you can't provide touch, the user will be in a drama in the VR world at any time, creating an unreal feeling. So how do you let the user touch a door, a window, or even something that doesn't exist in the real world?"
STEPVR found the understanding method - robot. Through continuous research and development, STEPVR has achieved a breakthrough in machine force feedback technology, that is, it can let users feel the real sense of touch in the virtual world through tactile gloves, force feedback vests, mechanical arms and other devices.
In addition, Guo added that STEPVR also tries to provide consumers with olfactory experience by heating natural materials. "We want users to be able to smell the temperature of grass and the aroma of earth, bringing a 'real virtual world' to users."
Precise laser positioning, providing "five senses" experience, STEPVR's ambition is obviously more than this. One of the goals of Guocheng 1 is to bring VR arena into the home and allow ordinary people to enter the meta-universe at home.
"Omnidirectional motion system can walk in about 2 square meters of space with natural gait, jumping, crouching, the machine can run as fast as the person runs, and can quickly stop when you want to. "Compared to ready Player One's track platform, we have a much thinner structure -- seven materials, 3,200% less noise control than the original one, and intelligent algorithms that allow us to respond faster, start and stop more flexibly, and have a lower threshold for the user to walk more freely." Guo cheng said.
It is reported that after the debut, The Guocheng 1 will be supplied to domestic orders in July, and enter shopping malls and communities in succession. Orders will be accepted from Singapore in October, and it is expected to enter Japan, South Korea, the Middle East, North America and Europe in 2023.
The age of household metaverse products?
Demand is the best driver of productivity. When talking about the opportunity of the layout of the meta-universe track, Guo Cheng said that he not only saw the business opportunity from the performance of STEPVR's offline VR e-sports chain "Future Battlefield", but also found the market demand from the perspective of consumers.
From April 2021 to the end of December 2021, future Battleground expanded its cooperative franchise from less than 10 stores to more than 200, covering more than 80 cities across China, he said. According to statistics, the first consumption of consumers do card rate as high as 70%, the second consumption do card rate is 30%.
Within 7 months, Futurobattleground has become the world's largest offline VR e-sports chain store with the largest number of stores, the largest single area, and the widest user age and geographical coverage. This led Guo to see more possibilities in VR scenarios.
"I love playing paintball with my friends, but I don't have many opportunities to play paintball in China. "If you can play at home, you can be athletic, you can be social, you can have a game experience, and you have a product that does all three, I think that's not just for me, but for other consumers as well." Guo said.
In fact, not only STEPVR, but also titans and capital are racing down the metasverse track.
Societe Generale Securities pointed out that the average daily turnover of the meta-universe theme segment is high, reflecting the attention and activity of the capital market, and it is expected that the meta-universe is expected to become the main investment line throughout 2022.
For the current endless meta-universe products, Internet analyst Zhang Shule told the "National Business Daily" reporter that the To B end of the meta-universe products are currently focused on the digital twin of the industry, To C end is the performance of large-scale online VR games.
"The former is based on the gradual advancement of mechanical simulation and digital simulation, which has a great possibility of maturity and evolution. Its products will be bigger and bigger, and its modules will be smaller and smaller. The latter are moving towards the direction of lightweight and miniaturization in the vehicle, that is, the iterative upgrade of VR glasses. As for guocheng no. 1, it is actually just a vehicle, similar to existing VR rides on the market. The goal is to give users more physical experience, so it is not suitable for home use." He said.
Zhang Shule believes that for the metasuruniverse products at the consumer level, the difficulty is not the entry device, but the key lies in the technical specification and iteration of the virtual world metasuruniverse construction, and whether it can jump out of the pixelated presentation and make users more truly immersed. The breakthrough is still not complete.
In response to questions from the National Business Daily, Guo cheng said that Guocheng 1 is mainly a B-end product, and there will be corresponding C-end products in the future, as well as the launch of Guocheng 2 and Guocheng 3. "There is room to improve the product in the future. For example, although the force controlled robot arm can provide all the press tactile sense, but the friction tactile sense has not been restored. In addition, there is room for each parameter to evolve and optimize, and one of our goals for the next phase is to get the glasses down to 120g to 130g."
"More important than our sales target is that we want consumers to spend an hour on this machine and stay in the metasomes," Guo said of his expectations for the Guoceng-1. We want to give as many people the possibility to try it, so that we can buy the consumer's time and have the opportunity to create a very great industry that can glide off the ground."