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from the don't-look-down...or-up-or-left-or-right dept.
A new, business-oriented VR headset uses a tiny, high resolution display panel within a larger panel in order to display very high quality imagery to users looking straight ahead:
The VR-1 calls its center panel a "Bionic Display." It's a 1920 x 1080 "micro-OLED" display with a resolution of 3,000 pixels per inch. (For context, last year's high-resolution prototype display from Google and LG had 1443 ppi.) Within that central strip, images are supposed to roughly match the resolution of the human eye. As Ars Technica, which checked out the headset, puts it, that section looks "every bit as detailed as real life." Outside that super crisp panel, there's a 1440 x 1600 display that produces images of more average quality.
The VR-1's total 87-degree field of view is smaller than that of the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive, let alone the 200 degrees offered by something like Pimax's more experimental VR headset. The Bionic Display only comprises a slice of it. Ars Technica describes great image quality while you're looking straight ahead, with a noticeable downgrade outside that. And rendering that high-resolution slice requires more processing power than you'd need for average VR headsets, which are already fairly demanding.
[...] The VR-1 uses standard SteamVR base stations for tracking, and it supports both the Unity and Unreal engines, so you could theoretically play games or use other consumer software. But the headset isn't priced for consumers. It costs $5,995 with an annual service fee of $995, and Varjo stresses that it's "only available for businesses and academic institutions." The company is already working with Airbus, Audi, Saab, Volkswagen, and Volvo, among others.
Also at Road to VR.
Related: Virtual Reality Audiences Stare Straight Ahead 75% of the Time
Google Research Proposes New Foveated Rendering Techniques for VR
Google and LG to Show Off World's Highest Resolution OLED-on-Glass Display in May
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday February 20 2019, @05:20PM (3 children)
They've offered them for movie watching for at least a couple decades, though not necessarily at HD resolution (though you can probably find such now). The problem with that is that it's then impossible to look away from the screen without removing the glasses. Someone comes in to talk to you, you turn to look at them, and there will be an HD display blocking your view, even if they're closer than the virtual distance. Want to glance at a paper document? Same problem.
If you want to avoid that, then you need a full Augmented Reality (AR) system, which has all the complexity of a VR system, plus the complexity of needing a switchably-transparent screen (because anyone who has tried working on a glass "whiteboard" knows how badly it sucks), and generally the complexity of tracking the position of the room itself and everything in it, so that virtual objects like your monitor can be stably attached to physical objects like your desk or wall. And of course, nothing says you can only have one virtual monitor - the exact same hardware can easily provide as many as you want, wherever you want.
I'm definitely waiting for a decent option to come along though. I suspect that's when VR will really take off - when it becomes just one of the things you can do with a far more useful AR system, that's also affordable.
It seems like such a system could actually work well in conjunction with an external system for beefier displays - give the glasses enough brains to handle virtual monitors, a floating HUD, etc., and then let them communicate with a more powerful system for rendering complicated scenes. E.g. for detailed VR the headset could provide time-stamped positional information, receive images with the corresponding time-stamp, and then perform the much-less-demanding frame distortion to compensate for head motion during the intervening interval.
Similarly, but more simply, it could receive video feeds to display on virtual monitors.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday February 20 2019, @06:13PM (2 children)
A VR headset can use a front-facing camera to simulate AR or simply allow you to see in front of you. 2 cameras would be preferable in order to recreate the VR180 experience [provideocoalition.com].
Another option is to add a hinge to allow the display enclosure to be flipped up [roadtovr.com].
One low tech option for AR would be to simply add a cover to block out light.
However, all of these would pale in comparison to a glasses-like form factor that is switchably transparent and extremely flat (metamaterial lenses and other tricks might help achieve this for VR headsets, or...). If it looked like a pair of lab safety glasses [amazon.com], that would be ideal since you want it to cover a wide field of view. Plus maybe you can pretend to be professional if they look like lab glasses. Add a lab coat or hard hat.
The "or..." above refers to beaming images onto the retina. This has been done with some AR glasses, but I'm not sure how far this can go with VR. Can 16K resolution, 240 Hz [soylentnews.org] be projected onto your eyes? If done right, nobody could see what you are looking at or distinguish the device from lab glasses or the same lab glasses looking like sunglasses.
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(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday February 20 2019, @07:32PM (1 child)
You can simulate a crappy AR experience with cameras, but I really don't see it becoming widely popular. For starters, unless the distance between cameras is *exactly* the same as your interpupilary distance, your depth perception will be off. The image quality will also be substantially lower than native vision, which can detect texture, etc. at far smaller scales than it can resolve individual details. Then there's the lag and lack of peripheral vision.
A simple light-blocking cover to transform AR glasses into VR is certainly an option, and might well enhance the light exclusion for VR usage, but it wouldn't help with the fact that an AR display that you can see through would still suck. Imagine trying to do your daily work on a virtual monitor, if you could see through it as well. And really, programmably transparent displays aren't actually that big of a challenge - that's basically what LCDs are - you can see the effect easily in large-segment displays like digital watches, and your monitor does basically the same thing at a much smaller scale, with colored lights behind the segments. The hard part is making a decent transparent display in the first place, an LCD backplane would just be another layer of manufacturing cost and complexity.
I do think lab-goggles would be a decent form factor, wrap-around sunglasses would be even better. And hey, with a variably transparent backplane they could even function as variable-darkness sunglasses.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday February 20 2019, @07:53PM
I was thinking of that too. Transition lenses on steroids.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]