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Outside-in lighthouse compatible, adjustable IPD:
https://www.roadtovr.com/valve...

Anyone paying a modicum of attention to the case figured that out long ago. That said, on appeal the judgement against Luckey/Iribe was eliminated, leaving a $250M judgement against Oculus.

You're right, the cost-benefit may not quite be there. But it is perfectly possible to make acceptable an electronic view finder (EVF) using existing technology.

This display can achieve 1443ppi.

These displays can achieve >2000 ppi.

What do we actually need?

Assuming the EVF has room for a modest 12mm x 9mm LCD, pixel-perfect reproduction of a modern 50 MP DSLR sensor (ca 8000x6000 pixels) would require 6000 lines over 9mm, or 666 lines per mm. That's actually pretty high, in PPI space it comes out at 16650 ppi. YIKES! It would have to be down-sampled by at least a factor of 1:10 (linear, by area it's 1:100) for it to be achieved using current technology.

Of course my calculation here may be a waste of time as the limiting factor will be the resolution of the human eyeball. I'll leave that calculation to someone else.

Really? You have one with a > 538ppi screen that's almost a decade old?

By some random chance it happens that, yeah, about three time this resolution. But it's not relevant actually.

PPI (points-per-inches) are (nearly) irrelevant in headset for the resolution.
What's relevant and of key important :
- the field of view (the total angle that the screen cover in front of view).
- the angular resolution (number of pixels per degree of angle).
Yes, on modern headsets, the display is achieved usually by using a smartphone screen, so you can take a short cut and compare the screen resolution and basically have a comparison.
That wasn't the necessarily the case a decade ago.

So my headset happens to use display that completely beat the crap out of anything on the market now, with somewhere around 1600DPI.
But that's that because they are tiny screens to begin with : each eye has a micro OLED display that's about a square milimeter, and offers a 852x600 resolution which the optics make cover ~40 degree of FOV. That was very impressive 10 years ago, but probably pales in comparison in what smartphone-screen-based headsets are doing now (or what the same company is doing now with 2k x 2k micro-OLED displays).

But resolution isn't what I was talking about.

What headset is that?...and how much did it cost?

eMagine z800 3D Visor, I managed to grab one during the short launch promotion where it sold for 600-700$ (normal price was twice that).

I suspect you're not talking about an even remotely comparable device here.

The device is based around a much older and much more expensive approach to headsets (using expensive custom made micro OLED. But they were mainly making devices for military use so it was worth for them. The z800 was just them making their port-folio diverse by adding some civilian products. They also use high quality complex optics to make the screen appear flat) than what is used today (use cheap off-the-shelves display like those mass-produced for smartphone, use a simple lens and compensate the distorsion in (GPU shader) software).

But it's comparable for 2 specific points.
- display refresh rate and persistence
- tracking

- my old gear used on purpose OLEDs, because they can go up to 85Hz (that was incredibly impressive back then) and can keep display for very short time (as soon as you cut the power, the pixel goes immediately dark).
- most modern headsets (Occulus Right, HTC Vive, etc.) use OLEDs. They can go even higher max display rate, and again can "blink" their display for very short time.
- this thing uses LCD. It's max refresh rate is a pale 72Hz which is *very* low for a VR headset. and LCD are slow to transition between one state and another (compared to OLED or even old tech like CRT. Of course if you compare them to even older pre-TFT LCD, they are a lot less blurry nowadays).

- my old gear used the best accelerometers they could get access to a decade ago-
- most modern headests have even better tracking than that, mostly relying on IR+camera-based tracking.
- this thing has dialed back the tracking a lot.

To roll back to the main subject of my comment :
kinetosis (sea sickness, VR-induced nausea, etc.) are caused by discrepencies between the motion you see with your eyes and the motion you feel with your inner ear (balance).
You want your headset to display a picture as close as possible at what the user would be seeing given the current head position as possible, to minimize the risk of getting headache and motion sickness.

That's why you want OLEDs :
- you want a frame rate as fast as possible to update as best as possible what the eyes should be seeing. This requires a high frame rate. This cheap

As has been noted, this video is TWO YEARS OLD, while there is a much more recent redirected walking" article available using a much more advanced teechnique....

Actually, VR is probably the reason these guys are switching to ray tracing. Here is a very interesting article on how they manage to reduce latency by using ray tracing instead of rasterizing: https://www.roadtovr.com/exclusive-nvidia-research-reinventing-display-pipeline-future-vr-part-2/
In short, with ray tracing you have the lens warping at no cost, and they can throw more rays at the center of the image (where it really matters because the retina has a rather small high resolution zone), and less rays in the periphery. They can even throw rays more often at the center of the image, they don't have to render the whole frame each time!

Already solved... nearly two years ago. It hasn't been used yet because no mainstream headset has installed the eye tracking sensors needed.

According to the source you cite : the system works at 250Hz to avoid the fovea out-running the the rendering.
That is way much higher thant the 90 FPS target of Occulus Rift (designed so the *head-motion* doesn't out run display. Intertia, etc.).

It will take some time until :
- VR hardware catches up and makes screen that accept framerates beyond 250 FPS
- The GPU rendering hardware is powerful enough so that, once factoring the foveated rendering speed gains, the over all system can stay above 250 FPS, as close to 100% of time as possible. ...while keeping in mind that the above (throwing GPU power at high FPS) is in competition with other targets (throwing GPU power at more scene detail and more pixels).

But could still be implemented half-way (not perfect foveated rendering, but slightly reducing resolution of parts of the image that are so much far away that there isn't much risk of over shooting even at lower FPS).

As proven by all the research done in VR since Occulus : the main drawback would be rendering speed/feedback loop.
Will this eyesight tracking work fast enough so the image rendering doesn't lag too much behind the eye motion ?

Already solved... nearly two years ago. It hasn't been used yet because no mainstream headset has installed the eye tracking sensors needed. I'm sure patents or cost are a factor. But the tech works, and the higher resolution we get the more important foveated rendering will be. So it's only a matter of time.

The price has dropped quite a bit.

$1,318.45 for PC + oculus + touch controllers -
https://www.amazon.com/A80CJ-D...

The oculus headset and touch package is currently $399 on the summer of rift sale - https://www.oculus.com/blog/ri...

The problem with content is being addressed -
Current higher budget games e.g.
Robo Recall - https://youtu.be/shiKcsjZnH0
Lone Echo - https://youtu.be/2pmV2mwAV9k
The Mages Tale - https://youtu.be/MKIr9-zrkI8

Upcoming examples -
Arktika.1 - https://youtu.be/KLkvbAFIOJc
Killing Floor: Incursion - https://youtu.be/i3SinWPbXnw
MARVEL Powers United VR - https://youtu.be/qcUbC1aQpeY

To help fund developers the following steps are being taken.

Facebook has spent $250 million on VR content last year and will spend another $250 million this year (Source : https://www.roadtovr.com/faceb... )

Oculus will pay Unreal Engine royalty fees for titles on their store.
https://www.vrfocus.com/2016/1...

There are quite a few mediocre titles out there, however you could say that about most platforms/ formats.

Here ya go
Ok that was 6 months ago, but Oculus Touch was already out and the holiday sales bump had passed, so it's unlikely they've caught up since then.

If cashiering is one of the most automatable jobs in the economy, that raises the question of "why haven't they all been automated?" One reason is that self-checkout lines cause theft to increase substantially, even with overseers watching the self-checkout lanes. Waiting in line also causes people to buy more of the impulse-aisle stuff (like candy) by the registers. Low-volume shops like antique stores (that might have one or two employees on duty at any given time) have the cashier do other tasks when there are no customers ready to check out, so a self-service checkout doesn't fully replace even one employee.

Google recently announced a tech called VPS, which I've been waiting for someone to invent. Soon, instead of attempting to find someone on the floor of a large store, and asking them where X is, you'll whip out your smartphone, start the VPS app, and ask it Siri-style what you want, and it'll navigate you exactly to that item/aisle/department/location/bathroom. And not much afterward, it'll be able to tell you what the price of something is. About half the time someone asks me how much an item costs, there's a price sticker on the item that says how much it is; a further 25% of the time, there's a price on the shelf where they picked it up. The app could probably just look at the UPC and do a database lookup on the store's website, though. The related question "do you have more in stock/where's another store that has more?" could also be answered by a database lookup. The last major customer service function of people on the floor is getting an item down... but robots could do this, trivially if the store were designed to be stocked by robots in the first place (and a stocking robot already existed).

Stocking is a drag for retail. At high-volume stores, it's a difficult job, so turnover is high. Lots of money is wasted on training, and retaining skilled workers is difficult since minimum wage is typical; since worker quality varies so much, and there are usually several who don't show up for work, time taken to stock varies significantly, putting a damper on the effectiveness of JIT warehousing. Stockers at my local Walmart are almost all immigrants who don't speak English, so I don't even bother asking them questions; VPS will make this moot soon, but point is, they don't serve much secondary function and could be safely automated.

The difference in the UFO test is like night and day to me -- 120 fps is "sharp" and in focus. The lower the frame rate the more "blurry" and "stuttery" it looks.

This isn't rocket science -- just simple physics.

* At 120 Hz refresh rate the UFO moves 1 pixels per quantum.
* At 60 Hz the UFO has to move 2 pixels per quantum.
* At 30 Hz the UFO has to move 4 pixels in the same quantum.

Now 4 px/quantum it looks jerky and stuttery-as-hell compared to 1 px/quantum. Not everyone is as blind as you.

When I'm gaming I can _instantly_ tell when the frame rate drops from 60 Hz to 30 Hz. 120 Hz is harder to tell, but it is still noticeable.

First, maybe if you actually _listened_ to professional gamers they would tell you the _exact_ same thing -- micro-stuttering IS important -- maintaining a SOLID, consistent framerate is THE most important thing in UI. Setting the bar low means people don't step up to the plate -- instead they will half-ass it with shitty 30 fps.

Here is a demo of why 30 Hz is crap -- holy lag batman!

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Second, as alluded above with the video, 120 Hz is important to minimize lag input. If you actually knew anything about rendering you would understand LATENCY. Not only rendering latency but INPUT latency.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/...

If Apple's marketing material is accurate, it mentions a change from the 120 Hz sampling rate of the capacitive touch screen in normal use to 240 Hz when the stylus is detected.

Having a sampling rate of 120 Hz when the display is only 30 or 60 Hz is laggy as hell. You want to keep BOTH at high rates, preferably in sync.

If you would listen to artists using tablets they say the same thing. Minimizing input lag along with a high frame rate is extremely important for artists to have a "natural" feel. THAT is the one of the strengths of traditional art forms -- they have 0 ms lag in pencil, brush, etc.

* http://www.cultofmac.com/38847...

Again, go read the Anand review of the iPad Pro Page 9

After a few trials I measured an approximate latency for the iPad Pro of roughly 49ms or 3 frames of delay, while the Wacom Cintiq in this configuration had roughly 116ms or ~7 frames of delay. Itâ(TM)s worth mentioning here that the camera I used was recording at 240 FPS, so these figures could be off by around 4ms even before accounting for human error. Although the Cintiq 22 HD does have higher latency, I wouldnâ(TM)t put too much into this as itâ(TM)s likely that a more powerful computer driving the display would narrow, if not eliminate the gap entirely.

For reference, I estimated the Surface Pro 3 to have about 87 ms or 5-6 frames of delay, and the Surface Book to have about 69 ms or around 4 frames of delay. However, in the case of the Surface devices I was using Fresh Paint, which is a drawing application that isn't exactly comparable to Photoshop but is sufficient for comparison purposes. To give an idea for how much the application has an effect on latency, the Apple Notes app has roughly 38 ms or around 2 frames of latency from when the stylus tip passes over one point to when the inking reaches the same point.

Third, GEE, why are the VR guys targeting 90+ Hz? Because it makes for less nausea.

* http://www.roadtovr.com/sony-c...

Fourth, you are not an Graphics / UI / UX expert. You don't have a fucking clue about the importance of why _every_ millisecond matters in jank free animation -- so stop pretending that you do a

They must be doing something wrong then because Resident Evil VII has over 250,000 registered players. Registration is optional so who knows what the actual numbers are ? That is for PSVR alone, maybe not supporting the PSVR is what they are doing wrong.

http://www.roadtovr.com/latest...

There are demos out there you can look at, using modified Rift HMDs. A company called SMI has been working on it. The limitation isn't the understanding of visual acuity, but the overall polish and sophistication of the implementation:

http://www.roadtovr.com/hands-...

Another major issue is the ability to actually derive speed benefits from this approach. If you're implementing it by (as they do in this demo) rendering three different views at different resolutions in different passes, there's a fair bit of overhead involved, and I suspect that they'd also have overlap between the layers where they're rendering more than they need to (can you really tell a GPU to render a donut-shaped view and not spend any time on the pixels in the middle? I don't know, but I'm skeptical)

That, I think, is where nVidia's approach comes into play: by removing the performance penalty of rendering multiple projected views, and using the projection to get the detail (and lack thereof) where you want it to be, basically just a more extreme version of the lens-matched rendering that I linked the screenshots of. Refine that, refine the hardware to the point of being consumer-ready, and you start to see some major benefits.

Nope, this is used for more efficient VR support in the Unreal & Unity engines. Though the same hardware feature can be used for foveated rendering too.

Oculus isn't 'allowing' anything, at least not directly. They simply removed a check for the Rift hardware in the DRM that checks if an account is allowed to play (i.e. paid for) a particular Oculus Home game. Oculus Home is their store/platform a la Steam. Many programs on Oculus Home don't support the HTC Vive natively, so someone made a program/hack called Revive that allows those to run on the Vive. Oculus' most recent act was to stop the check which blocked Revive from working in most cases. There is no guarantee on Oculus' end that Revive will work as advertised, or bug-free.
The RoadToVR writeup is better

There was actually a link in the article to another article that calls this one of "The 3 Most Common Arguments Against VR and Why They’re Wrong" http://www.roadtovr.com/the-3-...

It's obscure. Look for it in parentheses after the title. This was an editorial fail. Surprise!

http://www.roadtovr.com/nokia-...

Starbreeze Studios has taken wraps off of StarVR, a new VR headset with dual displays comprising a 210 degree horizontal field of view with a total resolution of 5120x1440. The headset's origins come from InfinitEye, a company working on a super-wide dual-display headset back in 2013, which went into stealth mode for quite some time before being reborn as StarVR in partnership with Starbreeze Studios. The studio is the developer behind the Payday franchise, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, and now 'Overkill's The Walking Dead', which will have a VR component utilizing the new headset.

Starbreeze Studios has taken wraps off of StarVR, a new VR headset with dual displays comprising a 210 degree horizontal field of view with a total resolution of 5120x1440. The headset's origins come from InfinitEye, a company working on a super-wide dual-display headset back in 2013, which went into stealth mode for quite some time before being reborn as StarVR in partnership with Starbreeze Studios. The studio is the developer behind the Payday franchise, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, and now 'Overkill's The Walking Dead', which will have a VR component utilizing the new headset.

Actually, there's plenty of prior art... and it's known to the public. There are even patents. Someone at Apple may have seen the patents, modified them for the iPhone, and gotten them published. http://www.roadtovr.com/samsun...

http://www.roadtovr.com/enthus...

Since the Oculus Ruft now has a certain backer, I'm looking at alternatives:
http://www.roadtovr.com/castar...

The actual link:
http://www.roadtovr.com/two-indie-devs-snuck-concealed-oculus-rift-laptop-onto-rollercoaster-ride-lifetime/

No reason to give kotaku clicks for their brief summary of another article.

After the FB/Oculus news, I looked into alternatives and found about this InfinitEye project from France that claims to do 210 degree of horizontal FOV, fully covering the human peripheral vision (while the Rift only does only 90 degrees). I'd pay attention to this one now.

You can't compare the Glyph, who lets you watch a screen floating in front of you, with the 110 FOV Rift, who places you virtually inside the content. Positional tracking in not that important if all you'll be doing is turning around this or that way, while seated at a chair. Can you imagine having a 360 3D live video being broadcast from a court seat in an NBA game, or a tennis or football match, with all the notions of scale and depth you get with real 3D? This will be a huge thing with sports and other content that benefits from the sense of presence you'll get.

Here's a link showing some people who are developing tech to stream live VR sports :

http://www.roadtovr.com/ces-20...