Virtual reality and visualization

VR and interactive simulation as design tools for rotating habitats, as teleoperation interfaces, and as alternatives to spaceflight.

Key results

VR as a design tool (Habitant, 2026)

  • Walk-through model. Habitant built a Blender model for walking inside small O'Neill cylinders, with configurable radius and length, bungalows, trees and lakes. Web and VR versions are online, with 60 m, 40 m (0.67 g at 4 rpm) and 24 m (0.67 g at 5 rpm) variants Habitant, 2026-09-09; Habitant, 2026-09-09.
  • Findings from walking in VR:
  • In a 24 m cylinder, cuboid buildings' walls don't match gravity after a few metres. Walls must be radial (pointing to the axis) and floors rounded; a 7 m room shows an odd corner view Habitant, 2026-09-11; Habitant, 2026-09-09.
  • Paul451: the square-walled version felt near-nauseating; radial walls didn't Paul451, 2026-09-12.
  • Doors hit the floor at 24 m, so use sliding doors Habitant, 2026-09-09.
  • Mirrors can make a short cylinder look wider; an axis light bar casts harsh shadows; keep upper window edges high Habitant, 2026-09-12.
  • A new version adds tall buildings, jumping physics and a gravity readout Habitant, 2026-09-17.
  • Other interactive tools:
  • A Coriolis force simulator (Godot, ephu.itch.io) Habitant, 2025-10-20. Interactive visualization of habitat sizes is "the next easy step" Habitant, 2025-10-17.
  • Paul451: simple varied buildings show "gravitationally curved/physically flat vs gravitationally flat/physically curved" Paul451, 2026-09-16.
  • Physical mock-ups complement VR: walk a full-scale mock-up (an 8–9 m yurt) Twark_Main, 2022-12-30. Earth "Analog City" mock-ups for training Coastal Ron, 2022-12-31.
  • Videos of rotating views (lamontagne) were an early form of this: 3 rpm "almost stressful", 1 rpm calmer lamontagne, 2023-01-25.

VR for teleoperation

VR as an alternative to gravity

  • KelvinZero's "VR exercise booth": elastic resistance plus VR worlds, closet-sized, also usable for teleoperation, with a huge Earth market. It is a medium-term alternative to spinning a whole habitat KelvinZero, 2015-02-23.

VR and rotating-frame perception

Modelling and CAD tools used in the thread

Open questions

  • Can VR reliably predict comfort in real rotating habitats? The Coriolis and vestibular cues are missing in VR.
  • Should VR walk-throughs become a standard design-review step for interior geometry at small radii?

Sources

Forum posts

  • high road, 2014-02-22 (reply #117): Screens with stationary view. Post.
  • SpinGravity, 2014-11-30 (reply #264, 1 like): VR teleoperated robots. Post.
  • KelvinZero, 2015-02-23 (reply #378): VR exercise booth. Post.
  • lamontagne, 2015-08-29 (reply #569, 2 likes): SketchUp. Post. Attachments: big stack.png, smallstationrender.png, smallstation.png, Station and ghost.png, station3.png.
  • Darren_Hensley, 2015-09-04 (reply #613): 3DS Max. Post. Attachments: Station_Bot_Aft_Pers.png, Station_Bot.png.
  • Stormbringer, 2015-10-08 (reply #681): Telepresence economics. Post.
  • Lampyridae, 2016-01-13 (reply #817): Deaf participant, cues. Post.
  • Refleks, 2019-01-07 (reply #1260): Fusion 360. Post.
  • Twark_Main, 2022-12-30 (reply #2726): Full-scale mock-up. Post. Attachments: yurt_construction_document.pdf.
  • Coastal Ron, 2022-12-31 (reply #2731): Earth mock-ups. Post.
  • Coastal Ron, 2023-01-20 (reply #2996): Stabilized cameras. Post.
  • lamontagne, 2023-01-25 (reply #3082, 3 likes): View videos (3 likes). Post.
  • Paul451, 2024-08-09 (reply #4729, 1 like): Teleoperated Dextre + good VR (1 like). Post.
  • Coastal Ron, 2024-08-09 (reply #4731): Human in loop. Post.
  • Peter_GST, 2025-04-21 (reply #4888, 1 like): High Frontier model. Post. Attachments: pures.jpg, pure2s.jpg, pure3s.jpg.
  • Habitant, 2025-10-17 (reply #5014): VR of habitat sizes. Post.
  • Habitant, 2025-10-20 (reply #5022, 1 like): Coriolis simulator. Post.
  • Habitant, 2026-09-09 (reply #5088, 4 likes): Blender/VR O'Neill walk-through (4 likes). Post. Attachments: habitat1.zip, screenshot1.png, screenshot2.png.
  • Habitant, 2026-09-09 (reply #5089, 3 likes): Web & VR versions (3 likes). Post.
  • Habitant, 2026-09-09 (reply #5091, 1 like): Sliding doors at 24 m. Post. Attachments: screenshot3.jpg.
  • Habitant, 2026-09-09 (reply #5092, 1 like): Cuboid walls mismatch. Post.
  • Habitant, 2026-09-11 (reply #5094, 2 likes): Walls must be radial (2 likes). Post.
  • Paul451, 2026-09-12 (reply #5096): Square walls near-nauseating. Post.
  • Habitant, 2026-09-12 (reply #5100): Mirrors, light bar, windows. Post. Attachments: mirror_ring.png.
  • Paul451, 2026-09-16 (reply #5116, 1 like): Curved vs flat demo (1 like). Post.
  • Habitant, 2026-09-17 (reply #5119, 1 like): Jumping physics, gravity readout (1 like). Post.

External references

  • Habitant's O'Neill cylinder walk-through: pace.ping.de/oneill/
  • Coriolis force simulator: ephu.itch.io/coriolis-force-simulator
  • University of Maryland ENAE484 X-Hab "Minimum Crew Cabin Studies" (2020), ssl.umd.edu/node/119.