Lo-fi simplified VR from Google I/O is an open-source solution to view steroscopic content on the web with your Android smartphone.
This isn’t the first of it’s kind (there is FOV2GO and many independent efforts) but this is certainly a decent framework and platform ready for experimentation. It’s nothing that will compete with high end technology (although that has benefited from developments in smartphone components such as gyroscopes and displays).
Below is a video from the I/O conference - it is 45 minutes long and a lot is focused on the development side, but the first 15 minutes will give you a good idea about what can be possible:
Virtual reality has made exciting progress over the past several years. However, developing for VR still requires expensive, specialized hardware. Thinking about how to make VR accessible to more people, a group of VR enthusiasts at Google experimented with using a smartphone to drive VR experiences.
The result is Cardboard, a no-frills enclosure that transforms a phone into a basic VR headset, and the accompanying open software toolkit that makes writing VR software as simple as building a web or mobile app.
By making it easy and inexpensive to experiment with VR, we hope to encourage developers to build the next generation of immersive digital experiences and make them available to everyone.
All the instructions + designs and more information can be found at the project homepage here
A kit with everything you will need with all the pieces can be ordered from Dodocase here
A collection of experiments ready for this system can be found here
