Exercise Biking in Virtual Reality through Google StreetView
bako.ca/streetview-riding/Posted Nov 12, 2009, 2:09 PM UTC
9343
bako.ca
Thats a cool project, but why not put up the garage door and hit the road for real?
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Because it gets too cold to ride most places. I live on the Gulf Coast and still have to use a trainer during the winter. And let me tell you: Gitmo has no torture like riding one of those for an hour or two. I would be interested if I could buy a kit or even an off-the-shelf product for this. I know much more expensive ones exist with static maps, etc, but I mean something simple like this that just leverages google streetview.
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Buy some winter cycling clothes. The feet and hands are the hardest to deal with, but otherwise it's quite manageable. I've biked in -10 C weather before and my torso, legs and head were comfortable (my feet and hands were not, I'm still not prepared in that area for temperatures that cold).
Edit: that said I do have a set of rollers and occasionally ride indoors.
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And what do you do about the mounds of snow everywhere?
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Skiing!
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Wait for the snowplows and run studded tires.
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Here's a programmer's solution to the cold-hands-while-biking problem
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I new instantly what you were linking to! Definitely a great story, although honestly I could probably benefit from heated gloves (which do exist). I've yet to find gloves that are both comfortable and warm enough for really cold weather. Although I also haven't looked to hard.
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Well I think it is cool that you can just pick any street location and start pedaling.
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As a year-round bike commuter, there are plenty of solutions. The big issue is that once you get going, you start to get too warm. If you plan for that, then once you stop, you freeze quickly. What works for me is a thin wicking layer, then t-shirt, then sweatshirt. I often throw a jacket on over that, but will either take that or the sweatshirt off if needed.
Also, check out icebike.com.
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Very clever. I forsee a day in the near future when your local exercise club is full of people wearing VR glasses. Nice job, monogram!
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hahaha, "had some problems with wireless"
SURPRISE LINUX
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He just tapped into the Matrix with Agent glasses.
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It would be cool if you virtually go 100x faster than you really are. Each rotation= 200ft. So virtually you can pedal hundreds of miles per hour. And if you can hook it up to Google Earth, you can fly as well...E.T. status.
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This would be even cooler when combined with this post. 3D Virtual Reality here we come!
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Oh man, I have totally wondered why nobody has done this before.
I usually just like to ride around for reals, but Chicago winters kinda prevent that. I've wanted to use my projector and a fan (what fun is riding without the breeze thru your hair?) to do this sort of thing for quite some time, but I haven't got the skillsets required to make it happen.
I also thought it would be a cool novelty for gyms, though probably not practical.
Props to this guy.
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This would be fantastic in all sorts of applications, not just biking... I can't wait to see something like this available for everyone. Imagine walking around in a city you've never been to, dodging people with ghosted out faces. Creepy.
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Google's re-creation of the real world is going to get more popular as it gets faster and more detailed. Integrating StreetView with Sketchup rendered 3D buildings in Google Earth would allow you to go inside buildings, too.
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These features (walking down the street, going into buildings) are already available at higher resolution.
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I was testing those features out the other day. Little did I know that physical feedback and been developed and you can physically interact with objects you encounter. I was so used to the older way, in which you kind of just "blur" past/through things.
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Cool setup. I'd like to bike around a city before a trip to get an idea of where everything is and what the intersections look like. Especially if I had a 10x speed button to hit so I could bike between cities.
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I saw something like this on the Travel Channel a long time ago. It was basically the same thing except it was a 3D world inhabited by other people using the same device. It also had you breathe through a tube so it could simulate riding at different altitudes. It was part of a competition between two guys who were trying to see who could loose the most weight using various gadgets, karma for whoever can find what I'm talking about.
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I think his garage is flooding...
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My shop has a multirider Computrainer set-up which is 8 trainers hooked up to one computer that controls the course and man am I dying to hack it. Right now it's just a very primitive 3d setup, but I can see it being so much more, I just don't know where to start since there's no documentation on interfacing with the hardware.
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I bet he added a squid proxy and configured/forced it to cache the images, it would speed up quite a bit.
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Cool project. The creator of it asked if anyone made something similar commercially.
Tacx make virtual reality trainers that allow you to race over the internet, etc. The braking unit simulates climbs and resistance is controlled by the computer as you progress along the course. Apart from the computer generated VR environments you can get DVDs of famous climbs, race courses, etc- the video is then synced to your speed. The video is quite effective and obviously would be higher resolution than Street View which would only have a frame every whatever number of metres. It is quite effective, first time I did it I almost came off the bike leaning over by habit on a descent :) On the other hand these DVDs obviously cost and there is a limited selection. You can make your own however, I found for example a group of Norwegian cyclists who have a whole stage/series race made up of both VR and "real life" courses they have made themselves and allow you to download for free.
I've just got one recently; apparently there is also some sort of Google Earth feature so you can cycle arbitrary routes of your own devising and it will simulate the gradients encountered while displaying the Google Earth view... Don't think it does Street View though. Haven't tried that yet, just the video ones. I believe you can take Garmin tracks and re-ride them also.
There is an optional steering system but most people I know who have used that found it a bit gimmicky and just to with the auto-steer.
Still doesn't beat going outside, even with this trainers are really boring! But there can be weather conditions where this just isn't really possible or advisable. Even in this country, I can only imagine in colder ones... I managed to injure myself last winter persevering outside in really adverse conditions. It's also good if you are in a city and you have a free hour but it would take you some time to get out into the countryside (difficult to get a good workout stopping at traffic lights every few minutes.)
I believe Elite (another trainer manufacturer) and possibly others have similar systems, this is just the one I have.
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Exercise bikes... for people so fat they don't want to be seen outdoors riding a bike.
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Snow Crashtastic
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I read that as exercise viking, and I was dreadfully confused.
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You are lucky, I read it as exercise bikini!
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Man, google street view is an awesome dataset to bike through, but when are you going to load this up to Mario Kart?
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So what happens when this guy turns a corner to continue his journey? The VR glasses would allow him to turn his head to look down a side-street, but he would not be able to make the turn.
At the very beginning of his exercise session, he has to find a road on the map that will not deviate from an exactly straight line for the entire duration of the workout. I imagine even a slightly off-straight trajectory would be so disconcerting that the system would remain unused.
tonecapone has the right idea.
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"As the system is aware of which way the user is viewing, it's possible to handle intersections through the same interface. When an intersection is reached, the system will check if the user is looking down a turn and follow that. If not looking at anything in particular, just follow the same direction that the user was travelling previously and head through the intersection."
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Awsome concept!
I wonder if in practical application, it makes you nauseous?
I wondered that too.
The lag between the VR glass movements to actually screen chaning was surprisingly small, but still definitely noticeable.
Very nice concept anyway.
He could probably enhance his program to cache a trip mapped out ahead of time and then play it back while biking, thus less delay.
That's what I was thinking. What about for a slow network? It would be unbearable without caching.
I suspect I would find myself clenching each time I blurred forward.