Developers Create Table Tennis Paddle Accessories for Oculus Touch, Enhancing VR Ping Pong Realism

Yivian Network, March 10, 2020Virtual reality has brought new possibilities for table tennis enthusiasts. Don't worry about traveling, don't worry about the venue, don't worry about not having opponents at hand, you can enjoy your favorite sport in various customized environments anytime, anywhere.

However, traditional VR table tennis simulators are played with motion controllers, which obviously cannot compare to professional paddles. So even if the game simulation is very realistic, the sense of realism will still be greatly reduced.

To address this problem, a group of inventors developed a paddle accessory specifically for Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift S. Table tennis enthusiast engineer Florian Auté began exploring this prototype as early as this year and collaborated with his friends to combine Oculus Touch with a table tennis paddle handle.

As shown in the above picture, they first drew the Oculus Touch pattern according to the real table tennis paddle's blade, then cut out a template accordingly. Next, Auté and his colleagues based on the real weight of the table tennis paddle and the template, and used a 3D printer to make a corresponding membrane, so that after attaching the Touch controller, the overall weight, center of gravity and texture can be comparable to a real table tennis paddle.

Finally, after several adjustments and game testing, they created the VR table tennis paddle peripheral shown below: