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Reverse Engineering the Oculus Rift DK2's Positional Tracking Tech

Posted by timothy on from the blink-and-you-won't-miss-it dept.

An anonymous reader writes The Oculus Rift DK2 VR headset hides under its IR-transparent shell an array of IR LEDs which are picked up by the positional tracker. The data is used to understand where the user's head is in 3D space so that the game engine can update the view accordingly, a critical function for reducing sim sickness and increasing immersion. Unsurprisingly, some endeavoring folks wanted to uncover the magic behind Oculus' tech and began reverse engineering the system. Along the way, they discovered some curious info including a firmware bug which, when fixed, revealed the true view of the positional tracker.

5 of 26 comments (clear)

  1. 40 years later, Twinkle Box makes a comeback. by Animats · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Oculus Rift tracking method, with various lights blinking at different rates, was first used in Twinkle Box, in 1974. It was really clunky then. They had to use rotating-disk cameras because vidicons had too much lag, and the wearer had to wear a big electronics box. Same idea, though.

  2. Article barely mentions me... by Jherico · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think that the article kind of unfairly glosses over my contribution. I posted the original reddit thread, and I'm the one who discovered the codes required to actually enable the LEDs on the device. I appreciate that Oliver is an actual VR researcher, but I did this in part to get some visibility for the book I'm writing on Oculus Rift development.

    --

    Jherico

    What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"

    1. Re:Article barely mentions me... by Jherico · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Anyone with the SDK can get these codes. Oh, and you made a thread on Reddit.

      Really? Oliver explicitly said he'd had no luck in getting the codes. The SDK doesn't contain them, btw. Only the Oculus runtime, which is closed source, now communicates with the hardware. So, anyone who had the SDK and could also figure out how to write a DLL to intercept the HID calls made by the runtime (not the SDK, which doesn't contain the codes anywhere) could get the codes.

      --

      Jherico

      What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"

    2. Re:Article barely mentions me... by ArcadeMan · · Score: 4, Funny

      Welcome to the internet where the facts are made up and citations don't matter. - ArcadeMan

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
  3. Article mentions me! by Jherico · · Score: 4, Informative

    Never mind. They've corrected the article.

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    Jherico

    What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"