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[Ty'renn Argos]

I wanna upgrade to something like this. but I don't have enough know how to make it work. and what would I even use it for?

A fair question. I honestly have no idea yet, but its awesomeness is being too overwhelming at the moment. I might answer in a bit, when my head has cooled down

[Verseus Tahl]

Pretty sure tom says where he found them in the first post. But I'd say focus on building your armour before you focus on things like an HUD. It's not that important the bigger picture.

Agreed! Thanks Vod!

[oldsmokey132]

I wanna upgrade to something like this. but I don't have enough know how to make it work. and what would I even use it for?

A HUD takes all kinds of sensor data and makes it available to you via an optical interface. In an airplane you'd have altitude, speed, attitude, distance from destination, compass information including heading, engine status like oil pressure, temp, exhaust temps and etc. If you actually had sensors to connect, it'd be cool, but having an app running on it would be, um a waste of cool effects as only you can see it and the information on the HUD would in no way correlate with what your MK 1 eyeball would be seeing anyway.  For me something like this would be very distracting. If I put anything inside the pot, I want it to be a good comms system.

[Kitala-Enby]

A HUD takes all kinds of sensor data and makes it available to you via an optical interface. In an airplane you'd have altitude, speed, attitude, distance from destination, compass information including heading, engine status like oil pressure, temp, exhaust temps and etc. If you actually had sensors to connect, it'd be cool, but having an app running on it would be, um a waste of cool effects as only you can see it and the information on the HUD would in no way correlate with what your MK 1 eyeball would be seeing anyway.  For me something like this would be very distracting. If I put anything inside the pot, I want it to be a good comms system.

Now walkie talkies would be great in a kit. I am forever loosing kai at events.

[Kalska Nubu]

I've only ever been to one big con (DragonCon 2014), but I'm pretty sure not only would you lose signal very quickly, but you would also pick up on everyone else that had the same idea, assuming you're using commercial grade "cheap" walkies. 

But as for uses of the HUD, the last latest and greatest thing I've seen when it comes to HUDs, are the Oakley Airwaves.  They are advertised to connect to your phone via bluetooth, and work with a downloadable app to send you placement, friend placement, direction, text message/notifications, and a couple of other things.  Might as well link it:

http://www.oakley.com/en/airwave/product/W0OO7049

There are others out there, mostly for sporty things like biking and such, (http://www.reconinstruments.com/), but for me, I think I would use it to bring the fandom out even more.  Also, I'm a huge proponent of technological advances, and I see this a huge one, or in the words of another man, one giant leap for mankind.  Honestly, if a group of nerds like us built a working, customizable HUD and shared it with everyone, it might cease being a nerdy thing, and see widespread use.  Bring on the future!

[Kitala-Enby]

I've only ever been to one big con (DragonCon 2014), but I'm pretty sure not only would you lose signal very quickly, but you would also pick up on everyone else that had the same idea, assuming you're using commercial grade "cheap" walkies. 

But as for uses of the HUD, the last latest and greatest thing I've seen when it comes to HUDs, are the Oakley Airwaves.  They are advertised to connect to your phone via bluetooth, and work with a downloadable app to send you placement, friend placement, direction, text message/notifications, and a couple of other things.  Might as well link it:

http://www.oakley.com/en/airwave/product/W0OO7049

There are others out there, mostly for sporty things like biking and such, (http://www.reconinstruments.com/), but for me, I think I would use it to bring the fandom out even more.  Also, I'm a huge proponent of technological advances, and I see this a huge one, or in the words of another man, one giant leap for mankind.  Honestly, if a group of nerds like us built a working, customizable HUD and shared it with everyone, it might cease being a nerdy thing, and see widespread use.  Bring on the future!

The biggest con in my city realy aint that big. Just busy. and fewer attendees so less chance of accidently tuning in on someones walkie frequency. Might get the kind we use in my work with the ear pieces nd the walkie in a belt. I oculd easily hide it in a pouch.

[Kalska Nubu]

The biggest con in my city realy aint that big. Just busy. and fewer attendees so less chance of accidently tuning in on someones walkie frequency. Might get the kind we use in my work with the ear pieces nd the walkie in a belt. I oculd easily hide it in a pouch.

True, I guess I assumed you were going to use this for big cons.  And if you're using a not as readily available radio system, you might be better off.

[Oryon]

If you're doing that a throat mic might be a good idea. It won't pick up the surrounding convention noises, only what you say. Plus you could hide it under your neckseal.

[Kitala-Enby]

Yeah, Biggest con in Glasgow is MCM, Held in a converted aircraft hanger, big enough and busy enough to lose someone, but not so big as to render the idea useless, and the other con is held in an ice rink, admittedly, an Olympic sized one, but still not that big. Could run from one end to the other in under a minute.

Will look into the throat mic. Could be handy.

[Kalska Nubu]

A throat mic is a really good idea, just be careful where you get yours.  I got mine off of amazon and got ripped off.  I payed somewhere in the neighborhood of $60 for a throat mic that had terrible mic quality (they were, in fact, two regular low quality multi-direction magnetic mics) and a very bad speraker.  On top of that, I had to build an adapter to fit the plug to work with my phone.  It was a good learning experience, though.

But we're straying from the main topic.  The Mand'alor brought up that he had found a relatively low cost Heads Up Display technology, and that utilizing Rasberry Pi might make it a usable HUD for our helmets, either within them or on the RF.  Someone else brought up what it might be used for, from a practicality standpoint. 

I think it would be really cool to have and use in my bucket, if only because its a heads up display.

[Kitala-Enby]

A throat mic is a really good idea, just be careful where you get yours.  I got mine off of amazon and got ripped off.  I payed somewhere in the neighborhood of $60 for a throat mic that had terrible mic quality (they were, in fact, two regular low quality multi-direction magnetic mics) and a very bad speraker.  On top of that, I had to build an adapter to fit the plug to work with my phone.  It was a good learning experience, though.

But we're straying from the main topic.  The Mand'alor brought up that he had found a relatively low cost Heads Up Display technology, and that utilizing Rasberry Pi might make it a usable HUD for our helmets, either within them or on the RF.  Someone else brought up what it might be used for, from a practicality standpoint. 

I think it would be really cool to have and use in my bucket, if only because its a heads up display.

Yeah I just bought a cheap one on amazon, Never buy something expensive if you're just testing out to see how it works. .

Also while working on various helmet tech I figured out how it would be useful. I was just imagining things like people checking emails and stuff and I didn't see the point really. But yesterday I sat with my dad (who helps me with some kit stuff, he's the one that helped me get my krayt ready for LFCC and who helped me fix all of my soldering on my helmet fans last night) And we discussed voice amps and hearing systems.

So what I currently have set up in my bucket is 2 fans at the back, a small mic on the outside of the helmet that connects to some earphones and then into my phone. This then runs through a microphone app that picks up sound and amplifies it, I have messed with the controls to cut out the fan noise which it initially picked up.

But the issue I was having was it wasn't unidirectional and was picking up my own speaking as well, and because of the low speed of the app I was getting a bad echo on my own voice. I also believe that this could be made worse by the voice amp I have on order, as if there is a delay between my voice and the amp then I would get a triple echo from the hearing aid mic picking up my own voice, echoing it, then picking up the amp and echoing that too.

I rationalized that this could possibly be fixed using a small computer, programmed with 4 pieces of audio hardware, 2 mics, One inside the helmet for the wearers voice, one outside to pick up con goers and stuff, and two speaker systems, one inside for the wearers hearing (could use headphones) and one on the belt to project the wearers voice. Now if you could get an application running on the computer to work with all of these components in unison, you could possibly program it to cancel out picking ones own voice up through their hearing aid mic. If your computer is smart enough (I'm not sure if what I'm describing is basically a raspberry I've not looked into them much) then you could program it to differentiate the two signals from the different mics, mark the inner mic as mic A, and the outer mic as mic B, Now mic B might pick up A because of the voice amp speaker, However if you could program the computer to analyse mic B's signal, scan it for the same wave frequencies from mic A, and cancel them out. you could remove this issue.

That's only the audio, there's other things you could do too. I would quite like to set up a helmet cam, on the outside, just like a small camera hidden in an RF or something, this would be simple enough to run and none of the previous two mentions would really call for the HUD as a requirement, However you could easily include it as a user interface, You see object tracking is now being perfected through cameras to a point where we could start to utilize it at home. Now if you fit a small camera on the inside of the helmet, focused on the eye, then you could program it to track your eye as it looks at your HUD. And it would basically work like a mouse, not sure how good it would be at using your eye to select, you would probably have to set up a small push to make switch to select. But you could basically use this to run your whole system in theory. Have a small thermometer linked up to your HUD, you could monitor your body temp or your helmet temp, and set it to automatically turn on the fans when it gets too hot, (you don't need to have the HUD for auto fan, But it would be incredibly good to be able to view your own temp. You could also use it to swap between say, hearing from Mic B or listening to music.)

So I was wrong, It might be a bit out there and a touch excessive. but an HUD could be very useful if you want to have completely controlled suit systems, you could go a lot further than this but so far I believe this post is wordy. if I go into the possibilities of systems outside of the helmet you're gonna be reading this till January.

[Kalska Nubu]

I like it!  Not to mention, the fact that we're all here probably says we're super nerds (at least I am).  And what super nerd doesn't want a realistic battle helmet.  Plus, if anyone does Iron Man cosplay, think of the possibilities!

[Oryon]

Just think of having that Halo styled HUD available for you to wear, except it has more information than just a bullet count and shield bar. I love the idea of the mic outside the helmet to pick up congoers, but you would need to seal off your helmet so it was soundproof for that to be really useful.

[Kitala-Enby]

Just think of having that Halo styled HUD available for you to wear, except it has more information than just a bullet count and shield bar. I love the idea of the mic outside the helmet to pick up congoers, but you would need to seal off your helmet so it was soundproof for that to be really useful.

I don't really see the point in having "information" It's a bit of a pointless add on. My view of the HUD is making it practical, not just something with false information that doesn't really do anything because it then makes it a bit pointless. And not really. I currently use in ear headphones, that, mixed with fan noise, mixed with con noise means that I can't really hear outside my helmet.

[Oryon]

I don't really see the point in having "information" It's a bit of a pointless add on. My view of the HUD is making it practical, not just something with false information that doesn't really do anything because it then makes it a bit pointless. And not really. I currently use in ear headphones, that, mixed with fan noise, mixed with con noise means that I can't really hear outside my helmet.

What I mean by information is things like time, battery life, fan RPM monitors, a mini GPS map so I don't get lost, waypoints for friends and locations, the name of the currently playing song, etc. The fact that no one sees your HUD except you means you can add more useful information and less useless stuff. And none of it has to be written in mando'a if you don't want. If none of the stuff on your HUD needs to be in-universe, then you can put whatever you want on it, there's no need for a fake bullet count, suit integrity levels and the like. You can basically program it to run your phone via hands free. I was just using the Halo HUD analogy because I thought it would be cool to have that HUD in my helmet

[Sine Nomine]

I don't really see the point in having "information" It's a bit of a pointless add on. My view of the HUD is making it practical, not just something with false information that doesn't really do anything because it then makes it a bit pointless. And not really. I currently use in ear headphones, that, mixed with fan noise, mixed with con noise means that I can't really hear outside my helmet.

If fan noise is a problem, just use CPU fans. A lot of them are silent.

[Kitala-Enby]

I dont know what a CPU is, and even if my fans were silent, I'd still need the hearing aid. Too loud out there.

[Carid Vhett]

What I mean by information is things like time, battery life, fan RPM monitors, a mini GPS map so I don't get lost, waypoints for friends and locations, the name of the currently playing song, etc. The fact that no one sees your HUD except you means you can add more useful information and less useless stuff. And none of it has to be written in mando'a if you don't want. If none of the stuff on your HUD needs to be in-universe, then you can put whatever you want on it, there's no need for a fake bullet count, suit integrity levels and the like. You can basically program it to run your phone via hands free. I was just using the Halo HUD analogy because I thought it would be cool to have that HUD in my helmet

This is awesome, but even a bullet count or something (even if no one else sees it) would be totally epic. I personally would have time, schedule so you can make it to those talks you want to see, battery life and a target reticle just because.

[Kitala-Enby]

This is awesome, but even a bullet count or something (even if no one else sees it) would be totally epic. I personally would have time, schedule so you can make it to those talks you want to see, battery life and a target reticle just because.

Time and schedule. Also good ideas.

[Dresdon Acacin]

Id also want a camera incase someone starts osik with me, so you have their face...at least thats why I have a helmet cam...

[Naasad Tal]

I have my phone built into my gauntlet & they make these Bluetooth cameras that link up to it for stills & video. Would be sweet to have one in my bucket for recording video or snapping pics at a con.

[Kalska Nubu]

I like the idea of the time/schedule use for the HUD.  Also, if anyone can figure out how to make a real and good facial scanner/recognizer, you could use it to scan the crowd for buddies or targets for the jail and bail.  But maybe that's just me being a visionary again.

[Kitala-Enby]

I like the idea of the time/schedule use for the HUD.  Also, if anyone can figure out how to make a real and good facial scanner/recognizer, you could use it to scan the crowd for buddies or targets for the jail and bail.  But maybe that's just me being a visionary again.

It might be possible, the eye tracking software I mentioned might have the capacity to recognise faces, But I think it might have just been recognizing a face, and might not be able to tell the difference.

[Oryon]

That would be expensive... You would first need a camera that captured in high quality HD and at a good FPS in order for the program to be able to scan enough of the face to recognize it and in order to be accurate it would need to be a fairly advanced program. I wonder if someone could modify Facebook and use its facial recognition program...

[Kitala-Enby]

That would be expensive... You would first need a camera that captured in high quality HD and at a good FPS in order for the program to be able to scan enough of the face to recognize it and in order to be accurate it would need to be a fairly advanced program. I wonder if someone could modify Facebook and use its facial recognition program...

probably not.