Oculus Rift Melds With A Real-Life Roller Coaster Ride

Researchers have created a way to experience an Oculus Rift virtual reality ride on a real roller coaster, synchronized to the real track.

Thomas Wagner, professor in the department of Virtual Design at the University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern, conceived the project when he questioned if it would be possible to replace the real environment by a synchronized virtual ride.

German roller coaster manufacturer Mack Rides provided two roller coasters for research and testing when Wagner approached it with “the idea of extending a real roller coaster by wearing an Oculus Rift headset during the ride.”

“Then, on April 7, we actually became VR coaster pioneers – being the very first people to experience an Oculus Rift VR-ride on a real roller coaster, synchronized to the real track,” Wagner wrote on the project’s website. “On that day, we all felt that we were laying the foundation of something very big. Over the following weeks and months, we have been performing more than a hundred test rides and have been making some amazing discoveries.”

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