Overview of the Kintex exhibition (South Korea, Seoul). Virtual Reality, Drones, 3D Printing

So the exhibition / conference in Seoul ended, dedicated to modern achievements in the field of virtual reality, 3D printing and drones. For those who are not yet in the know - from June 28 to 30 at the Kintex exhibition complex located near Seoul (Goyang city), the latest achievements of science and technology were shown. Unfortunately on the Internet in Russian these events are not much mentioned and I will try to fix this shortcoming.



To at least roughly understand the scope of the event, here are a few facts. Under these three events, about 17,000 square meters were allocated (this is more than 2 football fields). As I understand it, exhibitions in this format are held for the second time. More than 150 participating firms were represented.

In order to get to the exhibition halls themselves, located in the second building of the exhibition complex, you need to use the "running tracks", and at least 5 times. Let me remind you that on the street the heat is more than 30 degrees.



Actually, here is an approximate view of the combined VR room and RoboUniverse & KDrone:




Visitors to the exhibition can safely test VR, play games, travel around unrealistic landscapes of virtual worlds. This can be compared with the country of attractions. Only here it is free. Moreover, there were prizes to especially zealous participants in immersion in virtuality. For example, in the Unity pavilion they issued a card in which stamps were placed for trips to different sections of their pavilion. There were 9 stamps in total. For 3 stamps issued 3D glasses in the form of clips for a cell phone.



For 6 stamps - charging for a phone or a T-shirt with the Unity logo, for all 9 - a mini LEGO constructor. My strength was only enough to get a clip.

Of course, no one has canceled the queues, but they are built very logically - there are small tape fences and no one climbs with the words "I just ask." On average, they had to stand no more than 15 minutes per ride.

Here's an example of their roller coaster option: It’s



assembled on a standard frame for auto racing, even the steering wheel and gears have not been removed, but the main result. I will say this - the chair throws in all directions, you have to hold on to the steering wheel so as not to throw it out of the cart. The correspondence of the vibration picture is extremely realistic, at the end of the trip you begin to believe what is happening.

The day before I tested myself a car racing simulator on about the same platform. It looks awesome from the outside, but as soon as you get behind the wheel, it’s immediately clear that this is a hoax. yanks completely without reference to what is happening in the game, and even no control. Real cars better transmit drive :)

Here is another section. A simulator of an eagle flying over Paris. They put on glasses, you stand and look in different directions. Tilt your head to the side - turn left / right.



You can mortally crash into an obstacle, which I did. In fact, only the beak that is visible at the place of its nose is of interest here. I’m not afraid of heights, and there wasn’t much to look at.



Here is another entertainment - the likeness of Galaxian but already in virtual reality. Inside the game you can see something like this:



But outside it looks something like this:



Actually, it’s extremely fun to shoot back from enemies. Inside the game, only guns are visible, there is no body. When I realized that you can evade the shots, it was too late and they shot me :). This is one of the few games where there is no feeling of nausea from immersion. Another problem was that the weapon selection menu was somewhere in the area of ​​the bedside table and I simply could not see it. The vest on the back is not just. When the shot reaches the body, there is a noticeable vibration. Who shot it is not clear, but it is clear that you are a corpse.

Another stand of Unity offered to play in the children's strategy. According to her son’s reviews, she’s too easy to play for a long time, but she liked it in general.



The new shooting range / slasher Gungrave was introduced.



They put him in a chair, put on a helmet, gave them a joystick, and forward. Management is rather inconvenient. You have to aim while rotating your head, rear view. The camera can be rotated with the buttons on the joystick. Enemies climb in all directions, and I often got confused in which direction the camera should be rotated. The rest of the graphics are extremely pleasant, watering enemies is a pleasure. They won’t let you run far - it’s more a shooting gallery than a runner. At the end of the game, when the boss knocked me over, there was a slight sensation of nausea from the camera rotating in different directions. My opinion is that you can run around once. It seems to me that playing without a helmet would be much more comfortable.

As I mentioned, the main problem with 3d glasses is nausea. It appears in the case when the glasses are poorly fitted, or there is a mismatch of actions inside the virtual world with real physical laws. This infuriates the brain and it begins to rebel. In my case, these two factors worked both, because due to myopia, I wear glasses and have to put ordinary glasses into all 3d glasses. Then I heard an advertisement from the center of the hall that we say we promise a complete immersion in the “other world” without a feeling of nausea. I was interested in it and going closer I saw such a promising stand.



It’s worth a turn, two simulators, two chairs to change into special sneakers and a bunch of heaps of different sizes on the floor. Everything is done at the highest level. Everyone is offered disposable shoe covers and a face mask.



In fact, the simulator is a kind of ice bowl from childhood.



On the legs, crosses with plastic inserts, sliding on a plastic cup, are prevented from falling by the plastic ring and the belt on the belt. Apparently, it is the force of emphasis on this belt that affects the direction of movement in the game. In the hands of pretty standard 3d joysticks.



In fact, the game is a first-person shooter, where you can move in space, bending your legs on the floor and shoot at targets. Feelings say, for an amateur. There is no connection between leg movements and movement within the game.

As such, I didn’t find the steyf. We have to constantly go forward, turn around and go forward again. You can also go back, of course. The feeling is that your legs have been taken away and you have to go through with a heavy trolley full of chests. Once accelerated, stopping or turning is extremely difficult. The shots and targets themselves are made on a little worm. The experiment with this simulator had to be stopped ahead of schedule. Vomiting began to intensify with every second spent inside. Opinion is extremely negative. I do not recommend for use, even as an attraction. Buying for personal use - absolutely discourage. The technology is still extremely raw.

By the way, the day before, I visited Lotte World on the minus the third floor in the virtual reality section. They offered to shoot in a shooter for quite a lot of money. The equipment looked something like this.



What is missing is virtual reality glasses on the face. Glowing dots are position sensors in space. In reality, these are white dots. The camera sees them luminous. They are used to determine your posture and transfer data to the game. Two rooms of 40 meters each are allocated for the attraction. They can simultaneously play 2 players. This is a single player game where you are given the task of surviving on a space base and destroying all the monsters. It all looks extremely realistic. In the game you can see your palms and machine. The backpack itself weighs about 3 kg, plus a 1.5 kilogram pistol. In general, a complete immersion in the role of a star infantryman. The only minus of such an attraction is the restriction on movements in space. It takes about 10 steps in each direction. All movements are tracked in the game and the feeling that you are actually dodging enemies behind the barrels is present in full. There is no feeling of nausea or motion sickness. At the end of the game, it is a pity to leave this world. You can only find fault with the quality of execution of monsters. They are still not quite like real ones. Rather like demons from a fresh doom.

Were in this center and fun easier. For example, you can ride a monkey across the vines.



I haven’t tried it myself, but they say it’s cool.

Or you can walk along the top. This is true for those who are afraid of heights:



I have not tried it myself, they say that it is impressive. Also in this center they ride roller coasters with glasses, but I myself did not go, because experience has shown that such extreme entertainment for the spine is not very good.

Back to the exhibition. In general, feeling unimportant from immersion in virtuality, I decided to try the usual real toys, like a Segway.



Those who can ride a bike or a skateboard can easily master such a device. Near the knees there is additional emphasis and if you spread your arms like wings, you can feel the flight better than any flight of an eagle. Oh, if there were smooth bike paths in my hometown, then I probably wouldn’t resist and bought a ride like that.

On the way back I saw other 3d rides. For example, sensors are put on the body, vibration pads, glasses on the head, and you begin to wave your arms and legs on a real-virtual tatami, trying to defeat Bruce Lee. I have not tried it myself, but the children really liked it.

In the drones department, a massive field was reserved for drones. The local mobile operator advertised its 5G services, and hired professional drones, who, in 3d glasses, drove their cars along the highway via mobile phones.



Unfortunately, I didn’t see it myself, but I tried to go along the track on a small drone controlled via a cell phone. It was not easy, due to the fact that you have to look at the drone all the time, and your fingers constantly slide from the right places on the phone screen. Plus, everything is not always visible in the distance, where this very drone looks with its nose. Either turned back to you, or sideways.

Nearby was an arena for round drones. There you could practice the accuracy of maneuvering.



Drones were presented very different, but because I didn’t really study them, here are pictures of copies I especially liked. As I understand it, the motto of all drone creators like the Olympians is “Faster, Higher, Stronger!”









And finally, from this exhibition - a personal taxi, to take the child to kindergarten :)



Personally, I definitely won’t fit in such a booth.

On the way to the 3d printing exhibition, I met such an Asian vlogger:



I already met him inside the exhibition with one camera in my hand, but then he cooperated with two other friends and installed the modern wizard Merlin with a staff, a talking hat and an all-seeing eye.

It is time to attend the 3d printer conference. I will not describe much. From the main, I noticed several trends. Full color printing has reached the level of HD quality. In Korea, I have already met scanning and full-color printing services of my beloved.



But upon closer inspection, voxels of different colors on these models were visible. I have already seen a full-length print:

For example, this copy can be seen in the building of the holographic theater.



Here, too, upon close examination, points are visible.

At the exhibition, when examining full-color HD models, no points are visible. It feels like it's an industrial toy.



Full-length printing was also present at the exhibition, but unfortunately only with one type of plastic.

One more tendency was observed - it is layered printing. For those who are not in the know, this is when the model “by the hair” is pulled out of the bath with the solution. A DLP projector shines from the bottom of the bath and solidifies the solution.



This technology is still expensive, it does not allow full color, but it is a very fast printing method and allows you to create extremely strong designs. The usual method of layer-by-layer printing makes rather fragile structures that, under special load, can crumble into layers.

One of the companies offered thermal resistance printing. There was a bowl of boiling water on the stand where printed mugs bathed. The company representative assured that all this is reliable and drink from the mugs is safe for health.

At the exhibition, companies developing software for modeling and rare prints of metal were also slightly represented.

Basically, it was clear that the competition was quite high, and if you do not take into account full color, metal printing and growing parts, then most printers mainly differ in the size of the finished product, printing speed and cost of equipment.

Finally a quiz. Try to guess what kind of wreaths are installed along the exhibition centers.



We thought it was a funeral. The translator on the phone said that the heads of large companies send such bouquets as a sign of respect :)

At this, the tour came to an end. I hope it was interesting.

If anyone is interested, you can go to my site - there you will find videos and additional photos.