Google Cardboard — Making Strides in VR But Still Needs Some Refinements
“Dad, I really want you to see this!”
“Maybe some day,” he responded. His tone alludes to the fact that my world is a world he can never enter. My world is a place of youth, agile muscles, and void of health problems. His world is the exact opposite.
My home is Boulder, Colorado, a place where we forfeit big houses with land to have the mountains as our backyard. I have lived here for over two and a half years and have wanted my dad to come visit ever since I moved here. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as him jumping on a plane and visiting.
He suffered a heart attack and a stroke when I was 12. He taught Ph.d students in Statistics and Urban Development. Superficially, this profession sounds like a drag, but it has interested me since I was a child, mostly because my dad has always been my hero. In the hospital, the doctors said he would never teach at the collegiate level again. They said he would never function normally again.
He told them to F** off, and 12 years later, he retired from teaching his Ph.D students on his own terms. But his health remains a concern. Flying and going to high altitude locations are activities he should avoid. Additionally, he has a pacemaker so his heart can’t endure the pressure hiking in the mountains would put on it. With this information looming, I decided having him visit and hiking a mountain was something my hero would never be able to do. I made peace with that.
Then, Google Cardboard entered my life.
With Google Cardboard, you can take somewhere with you anywhere and allow them to relive the experience. The caveat is the VR systems are not the high quality we have come to expect from cameras. Regardless, I decided to give it a try when I hike to the top of the Arch in Boulder, CO.
I took photos at the top of the arch with Cardboard Camera. When used with the Cardboard, they are grainy, hard to see even with 20/20 vision, and have large blind/blurry spots. Additionally, they made my friends have ghostly, pulled-out faces.
The other caveat is that Medium does not support these photos, so I broke up one photo, featured below:
My lens was clean when I took this, but there is still a grainy, old-timey feel to this photo. Moreover, on the right, you can see a line where the camera meshed the photos together.
Note the blurriness in the top left corner. Also, the shadow of that person is way out of proportion.
My friends have the faces of those attacked by the girl in The Ring, a horror film of the early 21th century.
But in the Cardboard Camera, these photos look good. The tree is 3-D and my only real complaint is that the view gets lost while using the viewer. Cardboard is great at picking up large objects, but is poor at displaying the minute images.
I am hoping this technology improves soon. For now, I still am unable to take my dad to the top of the arch. He needs a very clear image with a great view. These photos lack both of these.
But it gives me hope that in near future, I can share all of my experiences with my dad, not just the ones at sea level.
