210 Degrees of Heads-Up Display: Hands-On With the InfinitEye

First time accepted submitter muterobert writes "InfinitEye is a prototype head mounted display that uses dual 1280×800 displays to create a massive 210 degree field of view. I traveled to Toulouse, France to be the first journalist in the world to go hands-on with the unit. These are my thoughts on the trip, the team, and the HMD itself. 'Natural and Panoramic Virtual Reality' is the best phrase I can come up with that summarises the InfinitEye's capabilities. If using the Oculus Rift is like opening the sunroof on a virtual world, the InfinitEye takes the roof clean off — at least if you base your opinion solely on horizontal FOV. But the new HMD also offers 1280×800 per eye in comparison the current Oculus Rift Dev Kit's 640×800 (and only slightly fewer pixels per eye than the Oculus Rift HD prototype)."

Comments

Typo in first word of Headline

[MyLongNickName]

This might be a new record or maybe not. The headline currently states "120 Degrees..." when it should say "210 Degrees..." Summary and article both state 210 degrees.

Re:Typo in first word of Headline

[DaTrueDave]

From your citation: "horizontal field of view is as high as 270"

Why not just one ultra wide display

[CastrTroy]

I'm much more interested in having a single display that is ultra wide, with the possibility of it being curved. For work, it's not bad to have a bunch of monitors as they will most likely contain separate windows anyway. But for gaming, having a single, continuous monitor with no borders in the middle works a lot better. Currently, you either have to have 3 monitors, so the middle of the screen isn't obstructed, or have 1 monitor. Having a single monitor that's as wide as 2 monitors would probably be wide enough for a lot of tasks. Also, even for work, It would be nice to have an ultra wide monitor, because there would be more usable space. There's kind of a dead zone in the middle because you don't want windows sitting between 2 monitors. If you have 2 monitors, it's hard to display 3 things side by side (Firefox , IE, and Chrome for instance).

Re:Why not just one ultra wide display

[Anonyme Connard]

As the screen is very close to your face, you need an eyepiece. One for each eye.

Re:Bandwagon jumpers

[muterobert]

You'll find that the original InfinitEye prototype actually pre-dates the Rift. And it's not just the resolution, it's the Field of View that makes this HMD special, soemthign the Rift in it's current form has no plans to address - unlike resolution.

Re:90s again?

[Joce640k]

There was a lot of hype about VR stuff in the 90s, and the whole thing did not get much traction.

Because they were rubbish. Back in the 90s you'd have to pay $100,000 for something that was worse than the $300 Oculus Rift devkit.

(plus another million for a computer powerful enough to drive it)

Are things significantly better now?

Yes.

Re:90s again?

[lordofthechia]

There was a lot of hype about VR stuff in the 90s, and the whole thing did not get much traction.

They're developing consumer versions that are far superior (and cheaper) than the $1000 minimum 256 color, low FoV junk from the 90's (looking at you VFX-1!). Better, professional units quickly went up to the 10s of thousands of dollars.

Are things significantly better now?

The reason why it's better now is due to cheap high resolution displays (thanks to phones and tablets) and precise accelerometers and gyros.

On the Occulus Rift side, they sidestepped the old design requiring two separate screens by using one screen split between your two eyes and using optics to make the narrow (per eye) screen appear wide. Also the optics concentrate more pixels in the center of your field of view (where you need them most). The distortions created by this are counteracted in software. So this new approach + cheaper displays + cheaper sensors = time for cheap and awesome consumer VR headsets!