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Where Are the High-Res Head-Mounted Displays?
vivian writes "Ever since 1996, when I first set eyes on a Sony GlassTron head-mounted display in Japan, I have been awaiting a lightweight, head-mounted display that actually has decent resolution and doesn't look like a brick tied to your face. The closest contender to date seems to be the WRAP 920AV from Vuzix, and they are partially transparent too, which is great, but as with every other unit I have found, they only offer video quality — 640x480. Given that there have been a number of other discussions on Slashdot, I can't be the only one here who is eagerly awaiting something that could actually be a viable alternative to a PC monitor — especially for gaming or 3d graphics work. Perhaps we could petition a manufacturer to make what we actually want? Something with a minimum of 1024x768 @30-60hz refresh, say, and capable of stereo vision. Extra karma if they incorporate head tracking."
The VR of the 90's is dead. Long live augmented realtiy.
Augmented reality != Isolated VR rooms as you have described above.
Augmented reality requires transparent HMDs or something similar so that visual reality can be augmented with extra information and not hugeass displays in a room somewhere.
http://www.kopin.com/about-cyberdisplay/ (Tiny LCDs.)
http://wearcam.org/ (More complex than regular 'partially transparent' displays, but _far_ more capable - look up Mediated Reality / Augmented Reality.)
While that would be cool for us, it was really pretty ridiculous for the use it was given in the Terminator movies. I mean, come on... the most efficient way to get information from a cyborg's archives into working memory is by displaying it in English in the visual field? In the peripheral vision, no less?
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
Because it just hangs on the wall, probably doesn't provide 3D, and I stop seeing it the moment I turn around or leave the room.
That's a very restricted solution. It works if you have a room to dedicate to it, and you're happy enough to interact with the system in one unique place. I think that's a pain and very limiting. Technology advances towards being portable. Making a huge investment in something I can't use most of the time seems the wrong way to go for me.
Er, a room covered with displays is exactly the old concept of VR. You're replacing reality completely there, except that instead wearing hardware it's all around you.
My understanding of "augmented reality" is precisely an HMD that mixes reality with VR. Things like:
Constant Internet connection that can be used at any time in any place
GPS overlay right over your vision while walking on the street
Vision enhacement - take the normal vision and modify it, by highlighting important things, removing ads, allow attaching a virtual sticky note on any building, extra cameras that allow to see from the back of your head or in infrared, easy lookups of data about things you see.
AR games: Merge reality and a game, playing say, a FPS in a park. Create a chessboard on any surface.
Merging RL with another world: I'd really like to be able to for instance merge RL with Second Life and make it so that somebody from SL can virtually sit near me and appear to be there.
Especially the constant reviewing of commented 6502 source code for reading and writing to floppy disks by track and sector! Why possible purpose does it serve to be reading that while shooting up a police department?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
That's depressing. I can't recall having been so disappointed in /.'s "geek" credibility. Anyone who reads/posts here has NO business being confused about a) why a head-mounted semi-transparent display is FUNDAMENTALLY different than a large wall-mounted LCD or b) what augmented reality is.
Yeah - ridiculous for a cyborg, but awesome for me. I can't tell you how useful it would be for me if, when somebody walked up to me at a party, I received the following tips on my head's-up:
* Name: John
* Relationship: Husband of wife's co-worker
* How well known?: Talked 3 times informally
* Drink/Smoke: Y/N
* Topics to avoid: Christian (fanatic), Janet (knocking her off behind wife's back)
* Suggested topics: MMA/UFC, Italian food
Would save me a lot of awkward conversation lulls.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Hmmm ... So Skynet started as a DeFragging tool that moved on to become a Fragging tool? Neat!
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Sure, but it would also provide inspiration for epic conversation lulz.
So, John, I ran into Janet the other day at the pagan sex festival, where she and your wife performed unspeakable acts on a pentagram. Care for a smoke?
Or, alternatively: So, John, I herd u liek Christ, so I put some 'body of Christ' into the body of Janet.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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The PiSight HMD promises 187 degrees horizontal and 84 degrees vertical FOV by tiling DLP chips. I have yet to see it myself, but the units start somewhere around $20K and go up depending on how much FOV you want). 1900x1200 per eye (kind of low, but higher than anything out there).
The problem to solve with HMDs is not just field of view or resolution--you also need to solve the convergence and accommodation problems.
I envision a future HMD unit integrating eye tracking and auto focus which exploits the way the human eye really sees (few degrees at a time, in extremely high resolution) instead of trying to render a very high resolution image at interactive frame rates. I imagine the fact that this has not been built is due to the catch-22 involving low demand and high cost [when only the military can afford your hardware and is willing to pay for it, there is absolutely NO incentive to mass produce it]
In the meantime, the state of the art in VR is still in systems like the CAVE. I think the Iowa State VRAC CAVE has something amazing like 16 Mpixel resolution...
I am waiting for one of the game companies to start exploiting this. In the meantime, get yourself a pair of NuVision Cinema LCD shutter glasses (around $100), a $500 emitter, and a DLP 3DTV device for under $3000 if you are serious about home-based VR. If you can drive the 3DTV device (NVidia is releasing drivers for it ... there is also hardware available from RealD), the quality is stunning. (You're on your own with head tracking...but there are cheap solutions out there such as the WiiMote based hacks...I've only used the more expensive solutions).