VR Coaster

A VR Coaster is a special kind of amusement park ride attraction, consisting of a roller coaster facility or ride that can be experienced with virtual reality headsets.^[1] The term VR Coaster derives from the abbreviation of virtual reality and roller coaster.^[2][3] The first publicly operated VR Coasters have been opened in late 2015.^[4][5] Since then, several theme parks all over the world have been adapting this technology to extend their existing coaster facilities.^[6][7]

A train of Superman – The Ride Virtual Reality Coaster at the Six Flags New England theme park. Riders are wearing Gear VR virtual reality headsets.

Background and history

While virtual reality roller coaster simulations quickly became quite popular after the appearance of the Oculus Rift, it showed that dizziness and motion sickness, known as Virtual reality sickness, would be a major problem.^[8] This was caused by the offset between the simulated motion in VR and the lack of real motion, as the inner Sense of balance wouldn't feel the appropriate forces and turns.^[9] In order to test if this could be overcome by synchronizing VR movement to real motion, a research group of the University of Applied Sciences, Kaiserslautern, led by Prof. Dipl.-Des. Thomas Wagner, together with roller coaster manufacturer Mack Rides and Europa-Park, has been conducting experiments on actual roller coaster facilities in early 2014.^[10] It showed that, with a precise synchronization, not only the nausea would disappear, but also a new kind of attraction was created (as, for the first time, this setup allowed for a simulation ride to feature continuous g-forces, zero gravity and drops (or so called Air-time).

Still, the technical setup of the 2014 experiments was not feasible yet for a permanent installation. Most of all, mounting a computer on a coaster train would not have worked due to the continuous heavy vibrations; also the usual cable connection of a classical VR headset like the Oculus Rift would have meant a serious safety hazard. Wagner and his team could eventually overcome these problems by deploying so called mobile VR headsets like the Samsung Gear VR, where the entire image generation happens directly inside of the actual headset. The very first VR Coaster installations have been opened to the public in late 2015,^[11] starting at Europa-Park, Germany, followed by Canada's Wonderland^[12] and Universal Studios Japan,^[13] all of them developed by the startup company with the same name, VR Coaster GmbH & Co. KG, which originated from Wagners research group.^[14] As of June 2016, 17 theme parks worldwide are operating VR Coasters (list). The latest installations can be found in Six Flags parks, themed with Superman content from the DC Comics universe.^[15][16]

Technical solutions

Key to a comfortable VR experience on an actual moving ride attraction is a precise synchronization of the virtual ride animation.^[17][18] To achieve this, the coaster train is equipped with special hardware that monitors the position of the train in the track layout and then wirelessly transmits this information to the headsets of the riders.^[2][18][19] This is also crucial, as the VR experience needs to run in absolute tracking mode (unlike relative tracking when used at home, where the VR view automatically rotates with a virtual vehicle), so without a precise tracking solution, curves and turns would not be in the right place. In other words, a virtual cockpit must always turn and travel in exactly the same direction as the real coaster car, which would not be possible without an automated synchronization. Still, as the human sense of balance can't detect absolute velocities but only acceleration and turns, speed and dimensions can be altered in VR.^[20] Even curves can be bent to different angles, as long as the relative direction of the turn is preserved (clockwise or counterclockwise).^[21]

Experience

As virtual reality allows for several modifications and extensions of the actual track layout, the size of the VR track can be much larger than the real one.^[22] This of course means that speeds can be much faster and heights much taller, as these aspects also grow with the increased dimensions. Most of all, there is no need to show an actual track or rails (which would give away what element comes next), other than for dramaturgical reasons. As the rider is totally immersed in the VR world, one can even be tricked by giving hints on a wrong track direction and then e.g. have a giant creature grabbing the virtual cockpit and carrying it into a different direction (which turns out to be the actual direction of the rails). Also, the effect of physical track elements like block brakes can be utilized in the VR experience for dramatic elements like crashing through a virtual barrier or building^[23] Riders report after their first VR Coaster ride that it is unlike anything they have ever experienced before.^[24]

See also

• List of roller coasters with virtual reality extensions (VR Coaster)

References