Will we soon see Augmented Reality firearms gaming & training?

[0ddl0t]

I've messed around with some primitive Virtual Reality simulators, but so far they have all seemed like a tiny step forward from the NES duck hunt-like projector simulators that have been around decades. While it was useful to run through various shoot/no shoot scenarios, it was still just a fake gun with no recoil.

example:



With Apple's new Vision headset, I can finally imagine augmented reality firearms training & gaming. You could be on a real range with a real gun shooting at normal targets, but you're seeing a blend of the real world and simulation in the goggles. Instead of seeing the cardboard IDPA silhouette bad guy next to a cardboard IDPA silhouette no shoot target in front of you, you see two virtual people enacting a scenario in your headset perfectly aligned with the real world targets. Like current simulators, you have to react to which, if any, target needs to be shot, but you're using you real world equipment. After its over, you check the target to score hits and compare times...

Am I nuts to think we might see Augmented Reality IDPA/USPSA matches in a few years?


Apple's $3,500 headset:

[Chance]

Will we see it? Yes. But "Will it happen?" and "Is it a good idea?" are two completely different discussions.

You look at all the complete nonsense training scenarios people can put together on a flat range and now you're going to turn the whole thing into a video game? I'm sure that can be done well and I'm sure most people won't do it well.

[CleverNickname]

Am I nuts to think we might see Augmented Reality IDPA/USPSA matches in a few years?

IDPA? Yes.

USPSA Open division? No, and there'll be a big kerfluffle once someone uses something like that to win a major match. Eye tracking goggles for aiming linked to a gun that is able to self-adjust the point-of-impact to where the shooter is looking, with a Neuralink-type brain interface that controls firing the gun seems like technology that's either available or at least plausible. I think one not-insignificant hurdle though would be that the companies developing consumer-level technology probably won't be eager for it to be used with guns.

[MVS]

If you use the Meta Quest 3 and ACE VR shooting you can mix the 2, of course not with real guns but it appears as if it may be a pretty good training tool. So far it seems as if it is not made for outdoors though.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

When the 'target' options are naked, beautiful folks (no discrimination - just choice), this option will take off.

Seriously (haha), you might see this but it is too expensive for the club level and probably too time consuming to set up. Yes, that is an geezer view - but I am reasonably tech savvy.

I think the next advance in personal small arms that is a paradigm breaker is guided rounds that seek to watch you are looking at and designate. Whether that can be brought down to hand gun level as compared to an SM-6 from a Mk 41 remains to be seen.

[Caballoflaco]

How do you augment reality when a. All the images projected are between you and the gun? Do you have a reticle projected into your future visor too? That means we need new augmented reality sights for pistols. Not impossible, but I haven’t seen one yet.

Using imaginary targets projected over your intended target violates the whole verify your target safety rule in my opinion.

[Stephanie B]

I shot some simulator which had a Glock that used compressed-gas cartridges to function and generate some recoil. It was kind of slow (the cartridges had to be found and recharged each run), but it showed that my groups went to crap in the scenarios.

[0ddl0t]

How do you augment reality when a. All the images projected are between you and the gun? Do you have a reticle projected into your future visor too? That means we need new augmented reality sights for pistols. Not impossible, but I haven’t seen one yet.

I suppose you could program it to recognize your gun's sights and project them back into the headset. But if you look at the dinosaur video, you can also see that it is quasi-transparent so you could also just use your real vision on real sights but line them up with the projected image in the headset.