I want to acknowledge Virtual Neural, LLC and G-Force Live, which unfortunately have to go from ⏸ to ⏹ so I can accept my dream job.
Scott Nebeker and I managed to crack the top 15 out of over 1,000 startups vying for ten spots in an insanely prestigious startup accelerator. We built telemetry hardware prototypes, played with VR cameras, and sent them out on racetracks and in aerobatic planes. We had deals with aerobatics teams, and did 3D models of their planes with livery and a photogrammetrically captured airfield and immersive video of performances. We accidentally invented an early but promising technology to add 6DOF-for-comfort to spherical photos that had a plausible line-of-sight to someday working with video.
And we got to pitch to companies NOBODY gets in the door to talk to.
Ultimately, I got to play with VR and AR in my basement with a good friend and fabulously talented spherical video production and photogrammetry ninja throughout a global pandemic. We spent essentially nothing. Absurdly small amounts of money (and we didn’t accept stimulus. That’s for people and companies who were struggling.) We had a blast, and learned a ton from each other. Wouldn’t trade that experience for the world.
Thanks, Scott. We did some amazing stuff together. What a fun adventure!
Here’s a video of one of our alpha builds. This was running on a Quest 1. (For comparison, where the Quest 2’s GPU chip goes, the Quest 1 had a Dorito.)