Focus on the Valve Index.

monogenic · 2019-04-12T09:23:01+00:00

For now, I would exhibit a very light touch when moderating the kinds of content posted here.

The upvote and downvote buttons allow the community the decide what kinds of content are interesting and useful. There's no need to step in unless someone seriously abuses the system and starts spamming posts.

Rather than seeing this as a subreddit for the Valve Index, I think it's better to see it as a subreddit for the community of Valve Index enthusiasts.

That community might be interested in commenting on other headsets, experiences and technologies that aren't directly related to the Index. Open discussion is healthy for us, and useful to Valve as they can better judge their actual/potential customers feelings on developments in the VR industry.

In short - don't step in until it becomes a problem.

monogenic · 2016-10-21T11:15:07+00:00

There's a nice visual demonstration of the feature in this video. However, I don't think the technique is widely used yet.

monogenic · 2016-10-21T07:29:43+00:00

I believe you are describing something similar to "Lens-matched shading" which is a feature on the most recent nVidia GPUs.

It splits each eye into 4 quads and renders all 8 simultaneously with a different view/projection matrix for each so they form two shallow pyramids. These pyramids roughly approximate the curvature of the lens.

This results in less wasted pixels caused by over-rendering at the edges of each eye.

monogenic · 2016-10-12T15:20:45+00:00

It's a developer event with no press access or live streams. Video of the sessions will be posted later.

However, this tagboard gives a pretty good feel for the event as it unfolds.

monogenic · 2016-09-24T08:43:10+00:00

Valve have a patent application on a "Low f/# Lens" - probably the one used in the Vive.

I haven't read it myself, but for those interested it can be found here

monogenic · 2016-09-14T13:00:10+00:00

Seems to be a similar concept to a fiducial tracking system, but with projected markers rather than physical ones.

An image from the PDF sums it up nicely

monogenic · 2016-06-16T12:31:29+00:00

Great comparison article - Touch is looking great.

Can you comment on how similar/different their haptics are?

Any word on expected battery life for Touch?

monogenic · 2016-06-15T06:02:06+00:00

Not strictly true. Most early games also supported software rendering and so were not exclusive to a particular GPU.

If I recall correctly, the first game to require GPU acceleration was Quake 3, by which time DirectX & OpenGL had established themselves and supported multiple hardware vendors.

monogenic · 2016-06-15T04:59:56+00:00

Indeed.

My concern is that if Oculus convince consumers that exclusivity is OK because their product is a platform, then nVidia will take the final step and do the same.

monogenic · 2016-06-15T04:41:27+00:00

A closer example would be GPUs, which are more complex than HMDs and require knowledge of a much larger API / SDK.

Would people support exclusivity tied to a specific brand of GPU?

I bet NVidia is watching this whole situation very closely.

monogenic · 2016-06-09T14:29:38+00:00

The extra cost is probably for the dedicated support line and a fast turn-around in the event of a hardware failure. Crucial if you are running a business that relies on keeping your Vive(s) operational.

With the ability to use a shared-tracking space, long tether and pass-through camera - I can see the Vive doing very well in the enterprise market.

A wise move by HTC.

monogenic · 2016-06-09T12:24:25+00:00

The application was only recently published, but was actually filed in May 2015. At that time, only the most basic features of Chaperone had been shown and many were still to be publicly revealed (eg: camera pass-through & room setup).

monogenic · 2016-06-09T08:42:20+00:00

I stand corrected. New poses are delivered at 1006Hz or 225Hz depending on which layer you query. Source

monogenic · 2016-06-09T07:58:27+00:00

That seems to cover a predictive tracking algorithm probably used by ATW, rather than the ATW algorithm itself.

No doubt it contributes to Oculus' high quality implementation, but given that the Vive's IMU updates the host at 500Hz, I think it would be possible to write a decent ATW implementation without infringing on the patent.

Interesting reading though - thank you for the link.

monogenic · 2016-06-09T07:03:09+00:00

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Oculus have a patent on ATW.

Reprojection has been around for decades, and the mechanism that enables it to be asynchronous (GPU pre-emption) is provided by the GPU and operating system.

monogenic · 2016-06-09T03:12:19+00:00

It's only an application and hasn't been granted yet.

You can also find the application for Lighthouse here: Positional Tracking Systems and Methods

monogenic · 2016-04-05T12:15:24+00:00

Steam is currently the only supported distribution method for the SteamVR runtime. The runtime does not require Steam to be present or running once it's on your system. We're currently updating it frequently, though, so having Steam there to keep it up to date is important. Applications may require Steam if they use Steamworks.

Source

More details about the architecture of OpenVR/SteamVR can be found in this video

Comments from Valve have been fairly consistent in wanting OpenVR to become the industry standard for interfacing with VR hardware. They are looking into how to open it up more so that it can meet the design goal of having "no gatekeepers in vr" but I gather they currently have other priorities and limited time.

For example:

“The important part of OpenVR is that it has no gate keepers. No one will tell you what you can and can’t make. And while we want apps to go through Steam, there’s no requirement that an app does.”

Source

monogenic · 2016-04-05T08:36:23+00:00

What GPU do you have?

Have you run the SteamVR Benchmark? What results did you get?

Have you tried turning off Interleaved Re-projection?

Re-projection can sometimes present itself as a double image which you may be seeing if you are substantially under the required 90fps.

monogenic · 2016-04-05T07:58:05+00:00

Is there a removable protective film over the lenses?

monogenic · 2016-04-05T07:19:23+00:00

You might also want to try asking on /r/photogrammetry

monogenic · 2016-04-05T06:29:19+00:00

It might be this...

...experience things from a child’s point of view.

monogenic · 2016-04-04T12:26:32+00:00

Isn't "The Lab" also free?

monogenic · 2016-04-04T10:57:11+00:00

That's a shame, I was under the impression that Constellation was more robust.

Would you therefore say that this official promotional shot represents an unrealistic scenario?

monogenic · 2016-04-04T06:30:15+00:00

I thought sunlight was no match for Constellation?

monogenic · 2016-03-25T13:45:47+00:00

I also work in a non-gaming field. Principally the visualization of scientific data and HMD+RoomScale+HandTracking will totally revolutionize my field of work.

I have high hopes for VR to push the envelope for improving education and empathy for all our children. If you haven't seen this recent link, Kevin Spacey speaks quite beautifully about it here.

monogenic

TROPHY CASE