Difference between revisions of "Janus VR"

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|Type=[[Tech Demo]]
 
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|Genre=[[Casual]], [[Exploration]], [[Educational]]
 
|Genre=[[Casual]], [[Exploration]], [[Educational]]

Revision as of 21:50, 6 February 2016

Information icon1.png This page is a stub, please expand it if you have more information.
Janus VR
Information
Developer James McCrae
Publisher Janus VR Inc.
Platform Oculus Rift
Device DK1, DK2
Operating System Windows, Mac, Linux zz
Type Tech Demo
Genre Casual, Exploration, Educational
Input Device Keyboard, Mouse, Gamepad, Leap Motion VR
Game Mode Single-Player, Multi-Player, Co-Op
Website http://janusvr.com
"Linux]] [[zz" cannot be used as a page name in this wiki.

Janus VR is a VR App for the Oculus Rift. It is a platform that allows the user to see and experience the internet through virtual reality. Janus VR is an immersive, collaborative, multi-dimensional internet where web pages are represented as fully interactive rooms with doors acting as links between them. It allows users to have spatial walks through the internet...

Background

The internet is seen as a collection of different search engines, apps and websites. Janus VR allows the user to experience the internet in 3D. The basic analogy to explain Janus VR is that webpages are rooms and the website links are doorways that connect the rooms. It can be defined as an immersive, collaborative and multi-dimensional internet. It is based on a VR version of Firefox called MozVR. The initial version of janus VR was named Firebox, but it was later decided to change the name since the browser is not in any way affiliated with Firefox web browser. The current iteration of janus VR supports Oculus Rift DK2 and Leap Motion. Rooms are created using an extended HTML and JavaScript and can be edited interactively from within the VR.

The growing community has more than 90,000 members who, in most cases, actively participate in the development of this multiverse.

Janus VR is inspired by Snow Crash, a novel by Neal Stephenson.

Features

Janus VR is an online network of multi-dimensional spaces, which are interconnected by portals. It allows the users to experience the internet in 3D by through the use of a VR HMDs. The salient features of Janus VR are:

  • Author content using existing 3D models
  • Navigation using traditional game controls or 3D hand gestures
  • Talk and chat in 3D
  • Surf 2D web in 3D

The environment in Janus VR is dynamically generated by using a portal-based system. The webpages with special HTML tags show enhanced 3D content and Janus VR allows interactive editing of these ‘FireBoxRooms’ directly. Site translators generate these FireBoxRooms after taking content, structure and data of existing sites and spatially generate content in a meaningful manner. The experience from Janus VR is multi-player or collaborative in which multiple people can navigate through virtual spaces together. The communication is done through sharing portals to new areas which each other or through voice or text. Recently, JavaScript (qtScript which is ECMAScript 3 complaint) enables the user to create a custom dynamic experience. The internet is then experienced in a purely visual and interactive manner through Janus VR.[1]

Recent enhancements to Janus VR include increased support for 3D object textures and greater flexibility in the sizing and positioning of doorways between the rooms, and the ability to record ghosts of your avatar to bring some life into otherwise static rooms. Support for video files has also been included and is already being used for virtual movie theaters and variety of other uses.

The current iteration of janus VR supports Oculus Rift DK2 and Leap Motion. janus VR is available for Windows, OSX, and Linux. It does not require installation and all that users have to do is to download the archive, extract it, and run the executable file.

System Requirements

Minimum System Requirements

  • OS: Windows XP/Vista/7/8 32-bit / Linux.
  • Processor: Dual-core CPU.
  • RAM: 4 GB.
  • Graphics Card: OpenGL 3.0 compatible with 512 MB RAM

Recommended System Requirements

  • OS: Windows 7 64-bit / Linux.
  • Processor: Quad-core CPU.
  • RAM: 8 GB.
  • Graphics Card: OpenGL 3.0 with 1 GB RAM
  • Software: (Windows) K-Lite Codec Pack (Basic) for video playback support

Setup Instructions

About the creators

James McCrae is the creator of janus VR. He has a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Toronto. Karan Singh, another important team member in janus VR project is a professor of interactive computer graphics at the University of Toronto.[2]

Images and Videos

References

  1. https://share.oculus.com/app/janus-vr
  2. http://www.janusvr.com/