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Linux Compatibility With VR Goggles?
WorldWarCheese writes "Many's the time I wish I had a little more mobility or comfort with my computer. Laptops are OK, but anyone interested can see right onto my screen; and a laptop doesn't quite have that 'cool' factor that VR goggles / headsets do. The problem is, whenever I've looked at the options, Linux compatibility is not mentioned. Is there a VR headset out there that is compatible with Ubuntu? If not, what could I do to make it compatible, and how feasible would that be?"
...they do nothing!
Congratulations, your half-way to becoming the newest member of the Borg collective! Just need a machine suit and a bunch of implants, and the transition to your new life is complete. :D
Not quite getting the same effect on the porn sites anymore huh?
and I own those exact goggles.
They're basically just a low res monitor... or a highly secretive way to watch porn without anyone knowing.
If you're looking for stereoscopic support, that's up to your display driver manufacturer. Nvidia's stereoscopic mode barely works on Windows, let alone on Linux.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
doesn't quite have that 'cool' factor that VR goggles / headsets do
That word.
I do not think it means what you think it means.
http://www.amazon.com/tag/notebook%20privacy%20screen
VR goggles?? Me thinks you have issues...
1. You think "VR goggles" are cool.
The site that is linked to says that it will work on "Any Computer" including PDAs and the like. I'm sure they would work with linux. The real question is - why would you want to work at 800x600 res?
The model you're linked doesn't specify compatibility, though it does list its inputs:
VGA / SVGA / XVGA Input: Scaled to SVGA (800 x 600)
It 'might' work out of the box like a plug and play monitor but it also may not.
The best way to check on Linux support is to contact the manufacturer of the devices you are looking at.
Custom drivers can be made for linux but it is easier for people to do so with the cooperation of the original developers.
As to how feasible it is to get the Mac-based drivers to work on Ubuntu, you've got me there. I'm not familiar enough with the differences between the two OSes at that level (networking geek, not a programmer).
nothing worth reading in the comments...
I'm right there with the author. I'd love to have a pair of goggles like this. I think it would be great to have a system that doesn't have a screen, where the primary display is a pair of these goggles.
It would be bitchin'
"Lame" - Galaxar
There are, now that small LCDs have gotten cheap, numerous "display glasses" type products that toss an LCD in front of each eye and have some sort of video input(generally VGA or composite, sometimes both or other). Basic VGA-in display glasses should work exactly like any other monitor on virtually anything. No guarantee that the EDID isn't complete nonsense; but it should basically work.
Any sort of OMG Stereoscopic Vision! drivers, though, will probably be useless in Linux. Those guys claim to support stereoscopic shutter glasses under certain conditions; but seem to be aiming at the Real Serious Workstation market. If you can deal with normal, non-3D glasses, you should have no problems, 3D, possibly not so much.
but please let us know if you find some that work.
VR goggles are nothing more than miniature displays that are mounted on eyeglass frames, so I doubt there'd be a compatibility issue, per se. You may have to get your hands deep into the xwindows config files to fine tune things, though, because they likely won't be set up already. Apart from that, they should just appear to be a standard VGA display, I would think.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
is that they are all low-res. I don't think I've heard of any that are above 1024x768, and even that's considered high for those. They're gimmicks. I think they're just too bulky still. People don't want to have to put something on their faces.
-- http://ninthagenda.com/
I wrote a linux kernel driver for the eMagin z800 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z800_3DVisor ) HMD available here: http://antimass.org/z800/
I will be updating it over the holidays to the latest kernel release as I've finally got some time to work on it.
...they do nothing!!
/obligatory
Bite my shiny metal ass!
Really, just skip the VR goggles all together; Set up your VR Environment, aka holo-deck if you want to akin it to Star-Trek. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_Automatic_Virtual_Environment
Linux is a toy.
what should we use? opensolaris? FreeBSD? Windows?
I'll take the flame-bait.
Tell that to all the companies running Linux for mission-critical services: Amazon, Google, Wikipedia, Slashdot, cripes, *most of the friggin' web*...
Your statement is about 10 years out of date, at least.
just get the i-3d video glasses... not exactly what you are looking for, but at least you can pretend to be Jordie from star trek until your parents leave and you can surf whatever you want...
Linux is a toy.
So is Windows. But this fact doesn't prevent it from enjoying wide hardware support. So this is non-issue.
Keep bugging Steve to release the Eyetap. AR is way cooler than VR!
a laptop doesn't quite have that 'cool' factor that VR goggles / headsets do.
VR goggles are only cool within the context of cyberpunk wish-fulfillment.
In real life, they make you look like a complete f*****g dork! :/
Kevin Warwick may be a "well-known figure in nerd subculture", but among nerds in the know, he's widely regarded as a shameless self-promoter, all-round media-tart and frankly, a bit of a joke.
His claims and ideas put him more into the realms of science fiction author / futurologist, rather than serious scientist / engineer.
Here's a gem, courtesy of The Reg: Captain Cyborg pushes kid chipping via Maddy abduction case
Political language
You can probably get the goggles working fine, the problem is finding content for them. In my opinion, this is really the only thing standing in the way wide adoption of VR goggles or LCD shutter glassses. We have the technology to do it, and I think gamers are willing to spend the money, someone just needs to write the code.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
.... you may not remember me as I am neither Kent Brockman, nor Troy McClure.
Not sure what that has to do with VR goggles...
Not sure what that has to do with VR goggles... that's a security thing...
umm....
So true. I myself have been interested in messing around with some 3D graphics with stereo support. OpenGL makes it pretty easy but finding suitable graphics card/driver support for Linux is a pain.
Good question and AFAIK there really isn't nothing. If you find something let us know.
Also, your motivation for wanting this doesn't seem to have anything to do with VR but rather security. If all you want is to prevent people from looking over your shoulder, go out and get one of those security screens for your monitor. They significantly reduce the viewing angle to the point where you can't see anything unless you are sitting directly in front of the screen.
If you're looking simply for security, I think you may not really like the price, inconvenience and eye strain that comes from VR goggles.
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
Everything is a toy, if you want it to be. Don't use that word as an insult, it's a compliment.
The Clemson VR lab uses (or used, at least) Linux workstations to run provide input to their VR goggles. Compatibility shouldn't be an issue, but you basically have to provide content yourself -- things won't automatically be cool. We didn't even use any kind of support in the drivers -- the goggles were two 640x480 screens, but were treated as a single 1280x480 screen. We just used OpenGL to draw two versions of our scenes from slightly different positions and presented them side-by-side so that they mapped properly onto the goggles.
Note: VR goggles are not actually cool to use. They're remarkably uncomfortable, both for your head and your eyes, and they have terrible resolution.
Y'know, as somebody who has done the whole 'wearable computer' thing, just a warning: We geeks thing wearing a HMD is 'cool', most everybody else things you're a dork. (Some people even took me for a suicide bomber with my battery packs). *sigh*
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
WTF? The posted link answers its own question! that's non-sense.
PC Compatibility: Recommended for any 3D computer imaging application, the all-new i-glasses PC/SVGA Pro 3Dâ is plug and play compatible with virtually all computer systems including PC's, Laptops and even some popular PDAs
Many's the time I wish I had a little more mobility or comfort with my computer.
Even nice headphones get uncomfortable after long periods. I can't imagine bulky goggles are terribly comfortable...
The confidence of ignorance will always overcome the indecision of knowledge.
In my last contract, I worked a VR lab with lots of toys. I have tried everything from $60 to $40,000 head mounted displays. In case you're wondering, the $60 option is an NTSC TV fed into a dimly lit monoscopic visor, while for $40,000 you get an amazing 1280x1024 digital LCD stereoscopic per eye at 90Hz. Nowhere in that range is a device that you can wear to use a GUI or a CLI interface for more than about 40 minutes. Even if your eyeball's diopter requirements are calibrated very carefully, even if your visual acuity is excellent, even if the contrast is good and the font sizes are large and beautiful, you will just not be well-served by reading text on a near-range display for more time than that.
It may be cute in the movies, but there are no options for head mounted displays that will do what you want to do, essentially live in the visor.
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doesn't quite have that 'cool' factor that VR goggles / headsets do
Obviously a definition of cool of which I was previously unaware.
VR/Goggles or not, People will still know you are watching pr0n...
Women are NOT attracted by the 'gargoyle' look, dude.
It's ok to love your computer.... but its not ok to LOVE your computer.
Dude, unplug, go outside, read a book, do something different for a while.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Here's some light control grating material, if they don't make a panel in your size. Two of these rotated at 90 deg. to each other would leave a very narrow viewable window. Not cheap, but not VR-goggley either.
Isn't that the standard response when something doesn't work on Linux? Just fix it yourself, you have the code!
I'm just wondering, in what way are VR goggles "cool"? Every time I've ever seen someone wearing them, the word "dorkbot" has come to mind...
Steve O.
I am really, really exhausted.
Yes, Linux supports active/passive stereo in a way that would be used by professional VR hardware, no problem. The problem is pretty much all of the consumer level devices do it differently: they hack in stereo rendering at the driver level to software that wasn't originally designed to take advantage of it. The devices then depend on this unique software hack and how it multiplexes in the frames to achieve the stereo effect, and cannot use something like an emitter.
None of that matters, anyway, since you shouldn't use multiplexed stereo for HMDs, that's for shutter glasses. HMDs should have two separate inputs, one for each eye, so that you get a full framerate for both eyes.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
I've been running Nvidia's stereoscopic mode on my display with anaglyph glasses(red-green glasses) and it works fine with games, if you exclude the whole see the game in a nasty brown color. I am also disappointed there aren't any stereodrivers for more productive uses like 3d modelling programs.
all the while I thought this story was about video goggles and Linux....
"Lame" - Galaxar
For those where thinking p0rn maybe they can include lubricants also.
Also sell other options like body pillows and other items....
These are more-accurately called "head-mounted displays", not VR goggles. Unless you really intend to display stereoscopic video on them, it's just a screen with some optics in front of your eye.
I've wanted one since about 2000, when they cost something like $2k. They now cost a couple hundred bucks. And the only real modification they need is an optics refit so that you can see through the displayed image (half-mirror + pentaprism).
I have a feeling my wife won't want to be seen with me in about five weeks.
Always has been and always will be until X is either replaced or joined by another video subsystem. One that lets you program closer to the hardware in kernel space.
I was trying to view a couple of video presentations on the National Transportation Safety Board website last week. WMV and RealVideo were the only choices. I had to boot into XP to watch them.
X has made tremendous progress over the years. X.org is fairly well-run. X still needs to be relegated to remote-only tasks IMO.
Old technology but check out -
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/science/9807/23/t_t/digital.gadgets/
It worked back then.
VR goggles are not cool. They make you look like an antisocial dork.
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
not stating a price on the web page is never a good sign though. (And the pictures looks like renders).
Descent 2 IIRC.
Puketastic. Never played that one for long. With head tracking and stereo vision though.
The only insight I got out of owning that old VR headset was that games need to maintain a general up and down to keep the puke down. Also holding on to something solid helped vs. the VFX cyberpuck...a precursor to the Wii remote.
Helicopter sims (Longbow IIRC) where less puky then prop sims (Flight Unlimited 2) which in turn were less pukey then jet sims (Jane's ATF for DOS...defend Mothra from Gamorahs mission was memorable). Fly Coordinated turns or puke believe it or not...OK I just made that part up.
Still got it hooked to the fastest computer I could find with a ISA slot (1 gig Celeron running 98SE). How geeky am I, thinking of firing it up for a Friday evening. Lame...just need some Beer, Doritos and dip. Even my friends will mock me.
To this day HMDs can't find critical mass to get games written for them. I don't know of any subseqent models that had as many hacked up games working as the VFX1.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/hardware/drivers/linux-powerglove.README
Put convex mirrors on your monitor. They're available at any auto store. Then you can see when people are looking over your shoulder and hit alt-tab to switch from porn to boring corporate software like outlook.
The VR920 from Vuzix (formerly Iwear) work fine with Linux/X for me..
http://www.vr920.com/iwear/products_vr920.html
They are basically a 800x600 display appearing as a 40in display at
6ft.
They support frame-flipping stereo and have a 3d headtracker.. though
they have no vendor supplied native support for these, there is some
technical information on the VR920 forum which would allow the implementation of a linux driver for this... Basically, the device provides a HID interface over USB accepting a command for frame flip sync and providing a periodic HID message 2 with the three position informations...
http://forums.vr920.com/Topic32-8-1.aspx
I've got one. The displays themselves are 800x600 per eye, rated for 60Hz. As the things gets an analog input, I've been able to feed it {pretty_much_everything}x600@{fucking_fast_framerates}.
(Though - of course - not all column are individually visible in 1600x600 modes (works more closely to a horizontal 2x AA 800x600), and beyond 100Hz slight sync bugs make it hard to exactly match hardware pixels to signal : at 160Hz there are a couple of pixels missing in the margins).
For those interested I published my modelines on the 3DVisor forums back then.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Z800 works more easily with nVidia hardware because :
The Z800 has another working mode :
It can start to automatically flip eyes on each alterning frame (odd frames to one eye, even frames to the other).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I've been playing with this driver and my 3D visor for quite some time, and I wanted to say "thank you". You work has been very useful.
Now if we could find some way to avoid the frame flipping to get out of sync between the software and the Visor...
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]