Unleash Unlimited locomotion in Virtual Reality with the Alto Platform
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Embodied computing platforms such as VR, AR, XR are here to disrupt every industry and change the way we play, work and connect with each other. But for these mediums to fulfill their full potentials and reach mass adoption, the user interface and interaction platforms need to evolve. We believe that immersive virtual and augmented worlds should be only limited by our imagination and not our interaction tools. VR needs its ‘user interface revolution’, the way Personal Computers did with the mouse and smart devices did with the multi-touch screen.
At Visospace, we are building the future of Digital Interaction and unlocking the full potential of VR and AR! We are starting with the Alto as your personal VR locomotion and navigation tool.
Since the dawn of VR, Locomotion has been one of the biggest unsolved problems. Moving around virtually (simulating movement visually) without physically moving the body causes ‘motion-sickness’ for majority of users. Thus developers do not expose users to fluid, free movement in their experiences. The current gold standard for VR movement is ‘Teleportation’ which is a breaker of immersion and confusing to the brain.
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What is Alto?
“the closest thing to lucid dreaming I have experienced…” – Abby, Alto user
The Alto is a platform to allow full, free, omnidirectional VR Locomotion in an engaging and immersive way without causing nausea and motion sickness.
You see your Alto, on the floor in front of you. You put on your headset and enter a virtual world. The board is still there in your view. You can walk to it and it gets closer. Step on it. It wakes up. You feel its flexible surface vibrate underneath you. As you see a house in the distance, you gently shift forward towards it and you start to move, picking up speed. You feel the ground underneath, the bumps, the jumps. You are flying low on the ground towards the house. Watch out, a rock bed coming up. Press your jetpack button and you fly up a bit just over the rock. When you get close to the house you lean back and slow down and stop just in front of the door. Get off the board and walk through the door!
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Not only does the Alto allow you to move around freely, it also features haptic feedback under your feet that make you feel the world under you! We have had hundreds of Alto test users report to us a fun and intuitive experience and very few cases of people with nausea (less than 5%).
So what next? We want to create our first community of Alto developers among you! We need you. If you join us, you will be one of just 100 developers around the world working closely with us and each other to adopt the Alto platform and unlocking an entirely new way to experience VR and engage with unlimited digital content. Will you be one of the Alto100?
We are industrial designing the Alto product for release in a second campaign later in the year. This manufactured version will be sold to consumers and location-based/enterprise customers.
What we need:
- Funds to pay for tooling, production, and delivery of the Alto
- Beta testers to start using the Alto and start making experiences for it with our support
- Our Alto100 developers to share their development with their own community in preparation for the second campaign
What you get:
- The Alto dev kit board ready for use
- SDK and plugins you will need to start making games and experiences on whatever platforms you want.
- Online support and our own examples of games and experiences to help you get started.
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The world needs the Alto and the Alto needs YOU!
With your support in this first campaign, we will deliver just 100 Alto boards to developers around the world lovingly made by us along with an SDK that has everything you need to start making your own experiences.
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[ UPDATE TO ABOVE TIMELINE]
Due to unforeseen delays and a change of manufacturing partner, we are now looking to finish the Alto100 boards by the end of October 2018 and deliver the product soon after.
We are limiting the numbers so that we can work closely with you and support you as you discover what you can build with the Alto.
Our library plugin will work across platforms including Unity, Unreal and PC based VR as well as phone-based and standalone VR which will be released later in the year.
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Risks & Challenges
The biggest risk of any early-stage startup is running out of funds. However, we have strategically completed the design stage of the product before launching on Indiegogo and have experience in manufacturing. We already know the costs of manufacturing and shipping. This significantly reduces the number of unknowns and estimates (usual suspects) that can become money pits.
We are manufacturing the Alto with a focus on the user experience in the virtual and physical world. So far we have fabricated them by hand to get the right experience. Reproducing this with the manufacturers could be challenging and a cause of delay. So we have already selected the manufacturers and will be visiting the factories to test the quality of the Alto components.
We could be overwhelmed by too many backers … that’s why we have limited the campaign to 100 units!
Apocalypse OR zombie outbreak OR end of the world OR apocalyptic zombie outbreak that results in the end of the world? … We will consider accepting caps.
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Who are we?
We are a team of passionate technologist with a mixture of human-machine interface, hardware, software and UX background. Our co-founders have created and invented many products including award-winning portable exoskeletons for moving paralysed hands, chewing simulators, robots, blood analyser machines, self-balancing unicycles and digital video content platforms enjoyed by millions every month. See our website for a full bio of our team.
We got together to create Visospace last year because we saw the future and decided it needed us! We can see where immersive mediums are going to bring humanity and we cannot wait for their potentials to be fulfilled. More importantly, we want to be part of shaping the future of interaction with the digital world.
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This year we are bringing your two crowdfunded campaigns to bring Alto into the world. This first campaign is limited to a special community of developers who will work with us to beta test the Alto platform, refine its design and create content and experiences that will be released in the next campaign targeting end users and consumers.
Special Thanks to:
We have a great network of supporters, advisors, and partners.
- Cocreators - Our amazing industrial designers
- Peter Koch - Our SDK adviser and collaborator. Founder of Avrtars.
- Ari Jacobs - The creator of Alto Island, Alto Mountain and AltoVizArch experiences
- Hoist Co-work Space - Our home and base support. A great space for startups!
- Ric Holland - Partner and adviser
- Extreme Digital Ventures - Collaborators and partners
- Oceanic Studios - Our partners and collaborators
- John Orhan (Atomicus) - Electronics support and advisor
- AKEng consulting - Electronics Engineering Consultant
- Pradeep Khanna - Global Mindset and VRARA Sydney Chapter
- Reality Reloaded - We are proud members of this organisation
- Our Angel Investors - Thank you Yugan, Amanda, Pieter
- PJ Collins @ Lostsheep Productions- Video production and editing
- Rowan Matheson @ Sizzle Video - Video production and editing
- Fledge Innovations Lab @ the CSIRO - Our first home and incubator
- Jobs for NSW MVP Grant - Grant awarded in April 2018
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F.A.Q.
How is it possible that you are only asking for $10,000 to succeed?
The Alto100 campaign has been launched to help us get enough funding for our tooling and to build a community. We would ideally like to sell all 100 Alto100 units during this campaign period. However, we have deliberately set our target at a value that will ensure we can get the units made and delivered. The extensive manufacturing experience that our industrial design partners and the core team bring has meant that we have sourced low-cost tooling solutions that can be achieved even at low volumes. In addition to the funds we hope to raise in this campaign, we are also funded by investment that will cover the material and delivery costs.
Which Alto will I get? The handmade unit shown in the videos or the nice looking one in the perk picture?
The 3D rendered images shown in the campaign are what you will get once we finish manufacturing their bodies and assembling and testing them in Australia with the electronics. We have been doing development and testing on our handmade units but these will end up in the Visospace museum soon! If you really really want the handmade ones you can make us an offer!
What are the dimensions and weight?
The dimensions will roughly be; board diameter is 600mm, the height is 100mm and the weight 4kg (these may vary slightly as manufacturing is completed).
Are users at risk of falling?
There is a possibility that users can fall, just as there is a risk of falling in VR in general. It is important that new users attempt the basic onboarding experiences to experience how the board operates. We also recommend that experiences developed for the board don’t require users to operate at the physical extremes or put the user at visually extreme speeds.
Do you have any research on sim-sickness for your device?
This year, researchers from a Psychology Department will be conducting independent research on the comparison between virtual locomotion using the Alto vs equivalent movements using hand-held joysticks.
Our own user tests (hundreds of demos and user sessions) have indicated under 5% reporting what we would classify as “motion sickness”.
Is it noisy?
No, there will likely be a low humming noise from the vibration haptics.
How do I know which direction to face the board in the real world?
For the Alto100 the forward in-game direction is the direction that the cables connect to the board. For mobile VR experiences, we are working on a solution to determine the direction the board is with respect to the mobile.
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OK I’m sold, how do I actually develop now?
Great! We have a Software Development Kit available for Unity and Unreal Engine. We hope to see experiences developed that work with both mobile and high-end VR as well as AR and 2D applications. We are also looking to expand our SDK to standalone headsets (OculusGo, Vive Focus etc.) and webVR in the future.
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