EEG for the development of True VR

Comments

• Skalbe Latvia

  November 2016

  Hello Abe!

  I love to see how people think about emergent technologies.

  I have been on this for a few years now and have so far found nobody else who is going the same direction. I've found numerous combinations of software that could allow for such an interactivity and tried many things. I will post my project as soon as it is in a somewhat presentable shape, but what goes on in the brain can uncover many things and all of it can be mapped accordingly into a meaningful VR space. Focus, inspiration, emotions are all mappable.

  Here's my setup: https://s12.postimg.org/m5p0iydr1/DSC_1966.jpg

  There's one guy that I found who does responsive 3D environments in his JunoVR, but I'm imagining it a bit differently and am trying to connect the functional sense of what a BCI can tell us in a universal fashion. You might also want to look into Spirit Technologies, they sometimes have nice topics to expand on: http://www.spiritualtechnologiessummit.com/

  The current most undermining issue for all of this is not functionality, but representation of such a project, cause it just looks weird and people are afraid of invasive technologies, or anything that implies control over or with your mind, because it implies a backward link as well. It is not however an invasive technology, but it has to be stylized in its' representation so that it is made relatable.

  I'm not going to go deeper cause that would just be too much of text here, but it is possible and you are on the right path and do not think of all those things how its' too big of a thing or too ambitious or anything like that. Those are things that people will tell you anyway, but as they are meaningless words.

  Hit me up with a PM if you have some specific questions.
• dialgex

  November 2016

  That's a decently impressive setup, and the site looks promising too

  
  

  What I'm aiming for, as you might guess, is to eventually have a helmet-like product that the average person can wear, and all I/O processing would go directly through the brain.

  No screens, no extra headset devices, no headphones; all sensory functions and processes would go straight through the helmet.

  
  

  To be honest, I think what I need right now, to start on the proof of concept, is advice on what EEG setup to get, to accurately read from specifically the motor cortex (for now).

  Once I get those readings, I can translate the wavebands onto a virtual character, almost similarly to how someone might use an EMG to control robotic prosthetics.

  The concept itself is the same, just laid across a different medium
• Skalbe Latvia

  November 2016

  I would like to have a helmet that does all of those things too, but currently the technology is very fringe and available in parts.

  I don't entirely understand what you mean by all I/O processing going through the brain.

  And the screen in the current VR is just a more observable output window for anyone else watching. It is not a necessity.

  You can check lists of available EEG headsets on wikipedia. I am using OpenBCI because it is open source, has a lot of resources and quite a large community.
• dialgex

  November 2016

  When I say all I/O processing going through the brain, I mean everything from motor control being read from the motor cortex to vision being fed through the visual cortex.

  I'd suggest looking at the Nervegear if you want to completely understand what I'm generally aiming for
  

  I'm mostly here because I wanted to ask the large community what they'd advise me to get to accurately read from the motor cortex
• Skalbe Latvia

  December 2016

  As far as the current tech is concerned, there are no cortexes. We only get raw EEG readings in large quantities over relatively huge areas of resolution and it's up to us to 'assign meaning' to the reading from an area according to what we know about the functionality context of that area of the brain. 'motor cortex' is just a term that describes a band-like area over the top of your head from ear to ear, from which you can get motor activity readings, which are used predominantly in medicine for control of prosthetics. The resolution you can get with an EEG device is enough to tell whether you are moving an arm or a leg, but not enough to detect a palm, let alone finger movement. This is being successfully used to move arms that are not actually there for you because for movement purposes, your brain can't actually tell if you are moving a leg or just thinking of moving it.

  I might be wrong, and I'm quite lenient when it comes to what's possible and what's not, but feeding externally controlled sensory impressions upon a brain is as possible as breathing in vacuum, because the 'images' of sound, colour, smell are subjective and dependant on the patterns of billions of neural pathway connections and their traffic and interactions. You can achieve jittery triggers by stimulating neurons so that a person suddenly thinks that he's seeing/hearing/smelling things, but they always will be subjective results. Also the fact that such an approach is externally invasive will put off like 99% of the current population of earth.

  Also that is an anime.
• dialgex

  December 2016

  Yes, I'm aware that "writing" information to the brain isn't exactly possible yet, and yes, that is an anime, but a start is still a start, and I've seen plenty of interest and not enough action for this technology all over the internet.

  
  

  I figured someone should be the crazy one to take the dive and make it real, so I started writing everything out, and came here to ask what people would advise for my proof-of-concept work for reading from the motor cortex.