Pioneering rock climber John Sherman, who practically invented the discipline of bouldering, once wrote, "The only gear really needed to go bouldering is boulders (or a climbing wall)."
That's certainly true, but it doesn't mean climbing can't benefit from a little modern technology. That's what two Finnish researchers had in mind when they came up with the concept for a climbing wall boosted by augmented reality. By combining a projector, a motion-tracking camera, and 3D game-building software, they were able to illuminate a climbing wall to illustrate the ideal route or provide hints to help climbers choose the best option for their next move.
Bouldering, as you might guess, can be done outdoors on actual boulders, but it's commonly practiced in climbing gyms where climbers scramble from hold to hold above a padded landing area without a safety rope. The sport is heavily social, as people work together to solve a particular "problem" and climb a route successfully.
Encouraging such collaboration was one goal of the augmented wall project, said Dr. Raine Kajastila, a post-doctoral researcher at Aalto University's Department of Media Technology in Finland, an avid climber for for nearly 15 years.
"Anyone can make a route and share it with others who can easily try them even on a different day," Kajastila said. "The social contact is not restricted to the same time and place."
Kajastila and Perttu Hämäläinen, a professor of computer games at Aalto, built a 13-foot by 8-foot climbing wall in their lab to test their idea. One concept used projectors to show routes up the wall, which appeared as a series of lines with circles around preferred holds. In another prototype, the program captured the climber's movement with an instant replay capability. There was even a built-in game that required climbers to avoid an animated chainsaw chasing them around the wall.
Whether used for fun or training, Hämäläinen said the extra information provided by the computer has been shown in several studies to accelerate learning a new skill.
"Computer-generated feedback can be faster and more accurate than training with a video camera or even receiving feedback from an instructor," he said. "It allows a student to do more repetitions and evaluations of a skill in a shorter time."
The Finnish team isn't the first to come up with an interactive climbing wall; there are commercial models available today with holds that light up to guide climbers. But Kajastila said their system, which would work with any existing wall, focuses on tracking a climber's entire body to illustrate where a climb went well and where someone might have gotten into trouble before a fall.
There are others working on high-tech training aids. Climbax is a pair of wristbands that collect data on your movements as you climb and upload it to an online portal. The company has gone through a Kickstarter campaign and is seeking additional funding. BouldAR is an augmented reality concept from a set of German researchers that would incorporate a smartphone as a way of sharing routes and challenging friends to competitions.
As they continue developing their system, Hämäläinen and Kajastila hope to build on past successes in motion capture and 3D game design. As far back as 2005, Hämäläinen's Kick Ass Kung-Fu "embodied gaming experience" was a highlight of WIRED's NextFest technology festival.
They're even exploring using interactive 3D models of boulders and climbing routes, building topographical maps using photo-processing software. With an accurate enough model, Kajastila said, you could print matching holds with a 3D printer and build a replica of the route indoors. That might be the ultimate step in bringing the outside in.
