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How to make virtual reality glasses from cardboard. Instructions for virtual glasses made from Google Cardboard


Google Cardboard - assembly instructions

When making a cardboard yourself, you can also attach an NFC chip to the glasses to ensure more reliable pairing with your smartphone. Smartphones with a built-in magnetometer have the ability to respond to changes magnetic field. The application, in turn, analyzes data from the smartphone camera, accelerometer, magnetometer and simulates the effect virtual reality in Cardboard. Google Play has created a whole section of cardboard applications from Google and third-party developers.

Download official application Cardboard for Android smartphones can be found below by scanning the QR code or by following the link to the application page on Google Play.

But in reality, if in reality you want to assemble a cardboard with your own hands, you will be a little disappointed in its availability. For example, the only materials at hand can be cardboard and a pattern drawing, but the main components such as: 2 convex lenses (with a focal length of ~45 mm), 2 magnets (neodymium ring and ceramic disk) and an NFC chip are unlikely to be lie on your nightstand. Therefore, if you don’t want to bother too much, it’s better to buy a ready-made Google Cardboard and try out the available virtual reality.

Having your own virtual reality module has been the dream of many since childhood, and progress is already very close to the creation of such devices. In 2014, Google developers presented the world with a stunning invention that uses the capabilities of regular smartphones on the Android platform. Right at the conference, any participant could assemble a virtual reality helmet from cardboard and a few simple parts and appreciate the delights of three-dimensional graphics and atmospheric video with the ability to view a full 360-degree view.

Virtual reality on the cheap

Google Cardboard was not a technological breakthrough; virtual reality helmets have been around for quite some time; moreover, many are familiar with children's devices for viewing three-dimensional images. Nowadays, few people can be surprised by the ability of smartphones to navigate in space; no, the public was surprised by something else. The simplicity and accessibility of the design is what really deserved attention, and besides, the developers have now released many applications that use this device to immerse themselves in virtual reality.

The developers of Google Cardboard opened up all the technical documentation for the device, refusing to trade their invention, and manufacturers instantly picked up the idea. On at the moment There are many different models made of plastic, cardboard and even leather products. For around $20, you can purchase cardboard kits like those that were first presented at the developer conference in June 2014. Also, instructions and diagrams are available to anyone, and it will not be difficult to assemble Cardboard with your own hands.

Materials

The prices for a cardboard box are, of course, quite significant, but before you make Cardboard yourself, you should know where to find or purchase the rest of the materials. We will need:


Electronic component - a powerful smartphone

Let us now analyze all the components point by point, starting with the models suitable smartphones. Anyone can find the ones invented by the developers for Google builds DIY Cardboard drawings. The sizes of phones suitable for such versions of glasses 2.0 are limited to a width of up to 83 mm and a diagonal of up to 6 inches. For other sizes, you will have to think through your own design, selecting the distances to the lenses experimentally, or look for an option from ready-made products in the store. 3D glasses also place additional demands on the device’s screen. Remember, you won't just be looking at your phone screen from very close, but you'll be getting magnification through the lenses. Of course, the better the screen, the less discomfort. At the moment, it is possible to use smartphones based on or higher (from 4 iPhones) or Windows Phone 7.0 and higher, but initially the entire system was designed specifically for Android 4.1. Download any VR application and check your smartphone for compatibility by rotating it and watching the picture.

Housing material

It is not difficult to select cardboard for the base of our glasses; a large pizza box has suitable parameters. You can also purchase cardboard in craft stores or disassemble some ownerless box from household appliances. Cardboard that is too thick will be inconvenient to cut and bend, while thin cardboard will most likely not hold the lenses and smartphone in a rigidly fixed position on the head.

Optics

With lenses, perhaps, it will be the most difficult, but this is the most important material for 3D glasses. Google recommends using lenses for Cardboard with a focal length of 45 mm; accordingly, the sizes of the virtual reality glasses themselves on the site are designed only for lenses with this focal length. Thus, the desire to use different lenses, or perhaps a system of two or more lenses per eyepiece, will inevitably lead to a readjustment of the distance to the eyes and the screen, thus changing the entire design. If you feel confident enough, it's worth experimenting, but it's much easier to order lenses.

Fasteners

As an attachment to the head, you can use a fabric elastic band or a Velcro strap. It’s not difficult to find rubber bands for the case, and even easier to replace. After assembling the entire structure, it is only needed to hold its shape. You can simply glue the 3D glasses at all joints after adjusting the lenses with glue or tape. Two Velcro strips measuring 15x20 mm will be needed to secure the closed lid with the smartphone inserted. In the absence of one, there are many options for fixing the cardboard cover; the main thing is to make sure that the smartphone does not fall out while using 3D glasses.

Additional controls

Magnets are needed to make an optional 3D headset control button on the case, and are only suitable for smartphone models with a built-in magnetometer. When creating a helmet for testing, you should not waste effort and money searching for suitable magnets. Such a button can be attached to virtual reality glasses separately after full testing of the device or not installed at all. For long-lasting 3D glasses, you will need a neodymium magnet ring and a magnetic ceramic disc, both measuring no more than 3x20mm. You can also cut holes and operate your smartphone with your fingers.

An NFC sticker is glued to the inside of the glasses, which allows the smartphone to automatically launch the necessary applications. You can probably find it in communication shops or online stores; it is also not mandatory, and you can install it later.

Tools and safety precautions

The simplest tool you will need is:

  • Google Cardboard template. The drawings are in the article.
  • A sharp knife, a durable stationery knife will do. The cardboard needs to be cut clearly along the lines of the template, especially the grooves and holes, so scissors won’t do the job.
  • Scotch tape or glue.
  • Hard line.

Google claims that scissors are enough for the job; don’t delude yourself; thin slits and fixing grooves are much more convenient to cut with a blade.

The design is reinforced with stiffening ribs from the inside, so there is not much difference between cutting out a whole pattern from a long piece of cardboard or assembling it from 2-3 parts, connecting them with tape. When cutting with a knife, be careful not to scratch the surface of the table or floor; take a special board for this purpose, for example, a cutting board from the kitchen. Particular care must be taken when cutting out holes for lenses, so that subsequently the lenses lie in the same plane, perpendicular to the view.

Assembling the device

Assemble according to the drawings, strengthen the frame with adhesive tape and carefully monitor the location of the lenses. In a fixed position, the cardboard will firmly press the lenses so that they do not move relative to each other. Next you need to glue Velcro as fasteners along the edges of the top side and on inside covers, and also install magnets in place. At this stage, you can already try on the 3D glasses on your head to determine areas of possible skin chafing. When watching a movie for a long time, for example, these points can be very irritating, so you can additionally pad them with thin strips of foam rubber.

Is the game worth the candle?

The 3D glasses are ready, all you have to do is secure them on your head with an elastic band or strap of your choice, insert a smartphone with a 3D application and enjoy virtual reality. As for the cost of the resulting device, there are many offers of ready-made kits priced under $10. You can save money only if all the parts are on hand or within easy reach. If you order spare parts, taking into account various expenses For shipping and order fulfillment time, it turns out to be somewhat more expensive than buying the entire set. Naturally, if your dog bites the 3D glasses because you sat in virtual reality instead of feeding or walking the animal, you can easily assemble new ones using the instructions above and the remaining parts. In the meantime, you are looking for cardboard to replace the damaged one, in order to restore the Cardboard with your own hands, you can also walk the dog and feed it.

Device capabilities

At the moment, there are already a significant number of optimized for Google Cardboard applications and several films. Paired with headphones, virtual reality glasses can easily replace a good 3D cinema, and games, according to users, despite their primitiveness, can add a strong sense of presence and atmosphere. For craftsmen and lovers of various technical tasks, it can be noted that it is possible Cardboard glasses connect to a computer to use the virtual reality module in games. This is where the truly immersive experience comes in.

Virtual reality technology in lately is becoming more and more relevant and in demand. The only problem is that the current cost of devices is quite high level, which makes the technology not accessible to everyone. In this article we will look at basic information on how to make virtual reality glasses on your own, using only improvised means.

What do you need to understand before creating homemade VR glasses?

Before you develop virtual reality glasses with your own hands, you must be familiar with the principle of their operation. If possible, you should test a factory sample. This is quite simple to do - in shopping centers devices with virtual reality technology are beginning to appear en masse, providing a number of games for their visitors.

Homemade VR glasses and how they affect vision?

Having decided to make virtual reality glasses at home, remember - these types of devices are designed so that after a certain amount time the user thought that the virtual world was real for him. Accordingly, the natural principle of vision must be preserved. Although modern developments have virtually no effect on the quality of vision, after developing your own prototype, we recommend not to spend too much time using it. This can be bad for your eyes.

How to make VR glasses with your own hands?

Before you make glasses with your own hands, you must get all the necessary tools and materials that will be needed to complete the work. Then you can proceed to the following procedures.
Diameter measurement required lenses. To do this, the smartphone is placed on a flat (!) stable surface, and then the user turns on a program on it to recreate virtual reality. The master's task is to view the screen through the lenses, changing the distance until an ideally high-quality picture is achieved without blurry outlines and corners. This will allow you to understand what lenses may be required, what should be focal length and so on.
At the next stage of creating virtual reality glasses for the phone, the master must personally create a cardboard box that acts as a case. Alternative option will be a scan downloaded from the Internet. It is necessary to ensure that the body does not have such a long bottom as upper part. Don't forget about the hole for own nose. Having made a protrusion, the smartphone will fully rest on them. Don't forget about the cutouts for the buttons located on the sides of the smartphone.
To achieve maximum picture quality in VR glasses, you need to paint all the insides black. This will prevent reflections and glare that can negatively affect the viewing experience.

How to make lenses?

Many people wonder how to make lenses. You won't be able to create them yourself, but there is one life hack - you can use lenses from old unnecessary flashlights. The main thing is that they are the same. Accordingly, you will have to acquire two flashlights.
Two holes are created on the cardboard, which are just a little short of the diameter of the lenses themselves. In this case, they will be inserted as tightly as possible into cardboard or other type of thick paper. To prevent them from falling out, you should additionally secure the lenses with hot glue. A few drops will be enough.

If you don't know how to make VR glasses, you don't need to first look for instructions on how to make them yourself. You must first familiarize yourself with the list of materials that will be required to create a homemade product. Our virtual glasses will be made from the following materials:

  1. Smartphone with operating system Android;
  2. Pen;
  3. Scissors;
  4. A pair of lenses;
  5. Ruler;
  6. Cardboard box.

Step by step instructions

A chart of points is available online and can be found by searching Google Cardboard. If this seems too simple, you can make the design yourself. In order to use glasses without problems, cardboard sheets must be extremely durable. This is the only way to guarantee wearing safety.
Initially, all parts are cut out from a cardboard box. In the figure below you can see the diagram of the blanks by which all the parts are prepared:
Before you start cutting out blanks for VR glasses, you should make drawings on cardboard. To do this, use a pen and ruler.
Once the drawings are prepared, you can start cutting them out using scissors. If you make a mistake, you can eliminate it using a glue gun. Once all the parts are cut out, all that remains is to connect them into a single whole.

Sheet of hard cardboard

To make virtual reality glasses with your own hands, you will need durable material. As practice shows, virtual reality glasses made of cardboard would be a good option. But if the task is to create a durable structure, you will need corrugated cardboard to make glasses.

Glasses cutting template

Before cutting out parts, you need to download drawings with dimensions. Finding them is quite easy on the Internet. You should select a template for cardboard virtual reality glasses depending on the size of your device, or customize them individually. The main thing is to get a high-quality image in each eye.

Lenses in the amount of 2 pieces

You can't do without lenses. If you don't have flashlights with you, you should use educational lenses for school. They are also suitable for creating virtual reality glasses. The main thing is to give them the desired position and play with the distance in order to ultimately get a good resolution.

VR content to check

Having created glasses for your smartphone with your own hands, all you have to do is go to the Android application market and download the programs you like. Make your choice according to your own taste.

Conclusion

Once you learn how to make VR glasses, you will notice that it is a fairly simple procedure. The hardest part to design is the glasses frame, but in the end you'll be happy with the work you've done.

Dear readers, thank you for reading or scrolling to the end of the article. Please share the article on social media. networks. We are trying for you. This will give us additional motivation.

Many of you have heard about Google Cardboard! A long time ago we wrote on our website about the exit of this device! Now every owner Android smartphone can buy it and download a bunch of games and applications under Google Cardboard on the official website!

Buying it is of course all great. But what about making a virtual reality headset yourself? And so, we will now tell you how to do this.

1. Take everything you need

What do we need to do this miracle? So, you need to get: cardboard (you can buy it at a creative supply store), lenses, magnets, as well as Velcro and elastic.

2. Download the drawings

In the future, if our readers want and are active in the comments, we will write instructions in Russian.

Non-standard solutions

When you make your virtual reality glasses, don't forget that you can get creative with your ideas. Decorate your Cardboard beautifully. The image above shows a very nice Google Cardboard called POWIS VIEWR. This model will cost you $30. Now it’s about 2,000 rubles. It may not seem expensive, but making something original yourself is much cooler!

Camera Jump

If you are very pleased with these gadgets and you have extra money, then you can get a gadget like Jump. What is it? This is a peculiar design of 16 chambers, it all looks like a ring.

This video tutorial will show you how to make cardboard 3D virtual reality glasses. To do this we need a phone, two lenses, a pen, a ruler and carton(thick cardboard). It is recommended to use lenses 5-7x, diameter 25 mm. The article consists of two parts. The first contains the basic steps for creating glasses, the second contains recommendations for improving the product and a description of applications for 3D games.

Buy ready-made cardboard glasses you can in this Chinese store.

From cardboard you need to cut out all the parts that will be needed to create the glasses. To do this, it is very convenient to use the diagram, which you can download from the link. It will make everything much easier to do. You can download this drawing for printing on a printer.


Now, according to this diagram, you need to draw out all the details on cardboard and cut them out using scissors. Next, you need to collect it all, which is, in principle, not difficult to do. In all places where there are bends, you need to bend the cardboard and connect everything using hot glue. Next you need to insert two lenses.

If you made the hole a little smaller than the lenses themselves, then you can simply place them very tightly and they will not fall out, but just in case better a couple drops of hot glue.

Now we need to download an application called cardboard to our phone. There's a lot in it different games for 3D glasses and videos. You can download the demo version from the Play Store.

Let's finish the 3D glasses. We insert the cardboard with lenses and we are all ready!

Go to the cardboard program. There are two sections here. There are many different games and videos here. We launch the one we like and insert it into our 3D glasses and enjoy virtual reality.

Since the phone has a built-in accelerometer, we can move our heads and the picture will also move.

There are many applications for these 3D glasses on the play market. Make these glasses or buy ready-made ones. In general, this cannot be explained, it’s very cool! Until you try it yourself, you won’t understand what it all looks like.

How to make a reality simulator for a personal computer

Next, we will show you how to make a reality simulator for a personal computer, these are virtual reality glasses like the Oculus Rift. To do this, we need straight hands and a well-functioning head and motivation to create homemade products. If you do not have any of these qualities, but have money, then it is better to immediately buy ready-made virtual glasses.

We will need a virtual reality helmet, which you could make using the video tutorial above. The current version adds larger lenses, head mounts, and Velcro to help the phone hold better. In general, this craft is assembled more carefully.

Where can I find lenses? You can take from the magnifying glass which contains two lenses that are perfect for these virtual glasses.

We will need a more powerful computer and a telephone with good characteristics so that all programs work stably and do not freeze.

You need to download a program called droidpad to your computer or phone. This application will help us use our phone as a virtual joystick. Namely, use the phone’s accelerometer itself. This application supports two types of connecting your computer to your phone: using USB and WiFi. We don't need it using usbi, because the phone will be inserted into the virtual glasses. Therefore, we will use the wi-fi method. It is desirable that the Internet speed be good and stable.

Now we have the most difficult work ahead of us. We need to calibrate the accelerometer of the iPod phone to our computer. After installing this program, the phone will be used by default as a virtual phone in games. Certainly not all games will be supported. Instructions for calibrating a phone with a computer are available on the 4PDA website.

After we have calibrated according to the phone's instructions for the computer, you can go into any game and test your magic glasses. The mechanism of this application is that using the phone's accelerometer, when you turn it, the screen rotates. It turns out to be a replacement for a computer mouse. Additionally, we need a program called cardboard. This program is needed to make the phone screen split in half. There is a special function, be sure to find it and configure it correctly so that everything works for you. Check that the phone screen is correctly divided not only on the desktop, but also in other programs.

Finally, download the latest program called Splashtop. This is a program so that we can view the computer screen through the phone. How to set up the program, instructions are also available on the 4PDA website.

After we have downloaded the program to the computer and phone, we need to launch the droidpad program to control the accelerometer, the cardboard program to divide the screen in half. These two programs must be running in the background. You need to open the Splashtop program and check if everything works. Launch the game on your computer and enjoy.

There is one caveat - the higher the pixel density on the phone, the clearer the picture will be. Besides games, of course, you can watch movies.

Everything voluminous is becoming fashionable, and many people want to have it in their home for creativity.