Virtual Reality

thanks for the info.

Tuco_sl said:

There's another hmd I can't remember the name of that goes up to like 200 or something. They actually render each frame 2 times for each eye and stitch them together. I think the rift is targetting 90 degrees which is too low but the resolution and frame rate are much more important.

Click to expand...

I remembered!InfinitEye 210 Degree HMD Technical QA: How does High FOV Virtual Reality Work? - Road to Virtual Reality

Oculus unveils new Rift prototype with positional tracking and mysterious OLED display | Polygon

No real surprises here. I'm glad they got to show off their 3d tracking even if it looks a little hokey. Seems like they have a decent screen, but the newness of the OLED displays makes it hard to mass produce them. I wonder if they're still using hacked up Samsung displays or if they're showing the screen of a potential vendor.

I'm thinking Christmas 2014 is a good bet.

It's not really feature creep as much as it is implementing real ways to solve problems and satisfy features.

The features of an HMD are:
1. 3d
2. Covers user's fov
3. high def display (1080p minimum, 4k is more ideal, 8k is probably the most that could be used)
4. high refresh rate (90hz minimum, could go up to 160hz probably)
5. orientation tracking (roll/pitch/yaw)
6. position tracking (x, y and z)
7. Very low latency between movement and display update (<40ms, 20ms is ideal)

#2 isn't really attempted with the prototypes of the rift, though they have gone way passed previous releases of HMDs. The infinitieye attempts this. (Blue is the rift, yellow is the infiniteye)


#3 is only possible in the last few years primarily because of improvements from smartphone technology (Which is really the impetus for this whole VR craze last year and this year, Oculus started by Palmer dicking aroudn in his garage by taking apart smartphones and posting about it on forums). #6 is only possible atm with a solution like they have with a camera. Tracking 3d position in small movements with high accuracy is very hard. #7 is only possible with very recent displays using OLED technology, because even though you could get very quick responses from your orientation estimate and update your game engine fast you'll still have smearing and lag in the display. There's still a huge problem where Oculus has to get a vendor that can mass-produce world-class displays. Samsung blows huge money on R&D to get displays like the S4, so a small outfit like Oculus getting a matching display is non-trivial.

It all depends on production really. If they're close to signing a contract and starting production with LG, Samsung, whatever then they will probably skip the DK2 and produce CK1 for Fall/Winter. If they're still early on in the negotiation step I think they'll get DK2 out in Summer/Fall.

Sometimes the best interviews are the ones the interviewees don't think will get seen by many people, lol.

I wouldn't say it's haggling as much as it is getting everything in order. Being a very new company with no released product and mass producing consumer electronics that are bleeding edge in many ways is basically unheard of. If you look at all the top consumer electronics over the last decade it's been pretty much companies like Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Samsung, LG etc.

But now that investors have given them hoards of cash the bean counters are starting to turn their heads so doors are opening for them.

CES 2014: The New Oculus Rift and Its Creator - Popular Mechanics

Cool interview. would love to see the classroom of the medical school that bought 20 rift DK1s for training.

Japanese companies testing 360-degree VR broadcasts for live events

I can imagine getting to be on the sidelines of a football game with the ability to move around and then just wanting to go back to watching the game from the dozens of cameras they have automatically switching around. Maybe if a football game had 10+ of these video heads you can switch to, but automatic switching would be annoying and manual switching would be tedious.