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I had an experience with an HTC Vive a couple of years ago, and I'm now considering getting the hardware required to do proper VR.
Obviously, I'd like to play games, but I'm also interested in visualising data (in particular I see that VTK supports OpenVR).
So I was wondering whether anyone in the community here has succeeded in getting this to work under linux, and if they can comment on the hardware required.
I'd be grateful for any insights.
As I understand it, it's best to get 120FPS, otherwise the brain doesn't like it.
I see that system76 has a "thelio major" desktop that can handle a range of NVIDIA cards, but I honestly don't know which would be the minimum that still gets me reasonable performance.
Is it important to have a lot of memory, a lot of cores?
Will I be able to change the level of detail in games to gain in FPS?
Right now it looks to me like I'd need more than 3000 euros for the whole thing (computer+htc vive).
My wife may not approve.
In any case, with the possibility of a second wave of coronavirus in the winter, I'm under the impression a working VR system would be a reasonable addition to the "don't go crazy" activities around the house.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Marand on Friday July 17 2020, @12:22PM (3 children)
This is basically the premise of "Google Cardboard" and works surprisingly well. You could probably rig something similar with a Pi, a cardboard box, and a small LCD display at the end. Stick your face in the box and see 3d pictures by displaying left/right eye images on the corresponding halves of the display.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday July 17 2020, @03:42PM (2 children)
You'd want to use the most powerful Pi available, at this moment, the Raspberry Pi 4. Still, that would be a lot of work, for what I would call very little reward. Since, you'd likely get a better experience doing the google cardboard thing, but just using a cheap phone you grabbed off e-bay for it.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Marand on Saturday July 18 2020, @02:06AM (1 child)
The original question seemed to be about viewing photos with depth (via left/right eye stills) so I don't think you'd need particularly powerful hardware for that; anything that can drive a small display should work. You're right that repurposing an old phone or small tablet to do the same thing with a small android app would do it as well or better though. And help avoid electronic waste as well.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Saturday July 18 2020, @06:59AM
Indeed. Thanks to everyone who replied here. In the meantime, I had another look for one of the old passive LG monitors (in FHD), found a good offer and ordered it, together with some glasses. We'll see how it works. As I understand, they use circular polarization and are Real3D compatible, i.e. you can even use the good glasses in cinemas.
It's a pity they are not made anymore. If I wanted to reproduce my experiment, I'd still have to look for active glasses. Fortunately there is a paper on the confusion with all the possible signaling methods, the hardest part is probably to get the images past the Linux compositors and a precise frame sync whenever this happens. I'd also look away from the Raspi and towards the RK3399 if I had to try.
One might start to believe in conspiracy theories about this sector, after getting an overview of the huge mess it is.