VR adapter for OWL Stereoscopic Viewer

Background

This project requires some explanation. For Christmas I received a copy of Queen In 3-D, the new book by Queen's guitarist Dr. Brian May. It seems he carried stereoscopic cameras throughout Queen's career and took a bunch of photos backstage and out and about. It's a terrific book. It comes with the OWL viewer, produced by Brian's London Stereoscopic Company.

LSC also developed an adapter which attaches a smartphone to the OWL and enables you to watch virtual reality videos. It's like a nicer version of the Google Cardboard viewer. The design is brilliant - very simple and elegant! I wrote to LSC to ask if the adapter is available separately since I already have the OWL, but got no response. Since I have a 3D printer, it should be easy to print a 3D adapter. No one has published one on Thingiverse, and out of respect for Brian's and LSC's intellectual property rights, I won't publish mine either.

Design

It's a simple rectangular plate that slips into the OWL viewer where one would normally put a stereo photo card. On the back I made some circular holders where I mounted some round Neodymium magnets (ceramic magnets are not strong enough). My iPhone already has a magnet on the back that I use with a magnetic mount in my car. So it will just stick right to the plate. I designed it parametrically so I can adjust the size for a snug fit in the OWL.






Printing

I printed a few partial samples to fine-tune the dimensions by a few millimeters. Here is a sample
with large chunks of the back plate cut out to reduce the print time but still give me the full width and height so I can test the fit. I used blue Hatchbox PLA filament for the test prints, and black Shaxon PLA to give a darker background to the videos.




Final Product

Using it

I was puzzled for a while about what software the smartphone needs to play VR. Then I learned that the YouTube app itself includes a VR mode (intended for Google Cardboard). For VR 360-degree content it displays the left and right halves and responds to motion of the phone to let you look around. For regular videos it simulates 3D by splitting the video into left and right, but can't respond to motion because the video is just a straight-ahead view.

I imagine there are dedicated VR apps for games and simulations etc. but I haven't looked into those yet. I saw a reference on Brian May's web site to some astronomical VR video's he has produced... he is also an astrophysics after all. I'll have to go back and find that link!