PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

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PalmerTech
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by PalmerTech »

bobv5 wrote: Display panel/s
PanelS? Got other ideas for the display?
Probably not for this revision, just keeping my options open.

I don't think there is a major jump at any particular FOV, it is an incremental improvement for sure. More important is good head tracking, and getting the in-game FOV to match the HMD FOV as closely as possible.

If I could order a hypothetical perfect screen, it would be 128mm wide, resolution as high as possible (Though 1080p might be a good limit, since that is the max that current wireless video transmitters can handle) with an HDMI interface. That 2560x1600 6.1" panel that Toshiba has been showing off is the closest thing to perfect out there, but it is not being produced yet, much less with a usable computer interface.
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by bobv5 »

Wondering what the headphones would be like if you included them? Would they be suitable for binaural positional audio? Does the quality of the headphones even affect that? The reason I ask is that binaural recordings always seem to be behind or inside my head. Never in front. Is it me, the same as some people can't see 3d, or is it the poor quality headphones I have been using?
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by brantlew »

So it sounds like there could be a phone screen out there that would come close to the ideal, right? Are those only available via OEM direct to the manufacturers? The other problem is of course the interface - one part electrical circuitry and one part software driver. So I wonder if there any phone screens that are
a) available for individual purchase
b) designed to be paired with a graphics chipset that can also be purchased off the shelf
c) has andoid/linux drivers for it (or has enough spec info so that a driver could be written)

I know this is much more complicated than the all-in-one solution, but it would be great if some type of group effort could assemble all the parts to make an even better HMD.
Last edited by brantlew on Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by cybereality »

This is sounding really good, I am certainly interested in getting one. I'd probably rather the really huge FOV one, even if it looked blurry or software support was lacking. There are already going to be decent options for moderate FOV like the Sony or SMD. I'm not sure how high the FOV was on the last prototype I tried, but it certainly gave a more immersive experience than anything else I've tried (even the Sony). It was great, at least in terms of immersion.
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by 3dvison »

Yes cybereality, I think big FOV is what this HMD is all about. I don't think any other HMD will have that anytime soon if ever.

Just because you used it and liked it, I would like to know also what FOV you were using cybereality.
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by cybereality »

@3dvison: Honestly I don't know. It was for sure over 90 degrees but I'm not sure by how much. Maybe Palmer will chime in...
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by Bishop51 »

brantlew wrote:In your experience, where is the inflection point between "really large screen" and "being inside". Personally I am excited about the possibility of the immersive experience, so if the cutoff lies somewhere just above 90 then I might not want to make that compromise (resolution be damned). In other words: is there a major perceptual shift between 90 and 120 degrees or is it just an incremental change?
This is an important question and the most relevant one I think with respect to what people are trying to get out of the PR2.

Since most of us haven't had the privilege of experiencing anything over 90d FOV, what is the actual immersive tipping point? Is there a calculable moment where you effectively trick the visual brain into feeling immersed? Does a hamstrung resolution destroy that immersion factor or does pixel diffusion make that a moot point?

For myself, I will be using the PR2 to play games but not just any games. Only games with appropriate pacing (slow and or heavy on environment/atmosphere) and only games that allow me to hack the fov or remove/move HUD elements (there's a number of them ready for that). There's a few classics I'm dying to go back to and hopefully feel like I'm standing there, rather than looking at a little window.

Is that hoping for too much? Am I being unrealistic with my expectations of the PR2? Can I load up Skyrim and feel like I'm standing in a dark dungeon or an open, expansive cathedral?
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by WiredEarp »

As a guess, when you increase FOV, immersion becomes more common, but the true tipping point would be when it starts to approach covering your entire vision.
I remember virtuality which I think was about 80-90 degrees (i'm a bit leary as to the specs posted on Vrealities or somewhere that claim it was less) and that had a very noticable black border. It was like watching a widescreen movie however. That system could and did still immerse you, but often you still realised you were in a VR due to the black edges. The best immersion for me came after I got into the game and was just playing it like a game, and then I stopped noticing the black edges and actually had some sensations that I was IN the game. Its the difference between a screen in front of you showing 3D, and scuba diving in a pool of 3D.

As the black edges reduce, the sense of immersion increases.
To answer the specific question, if the HMD has a FOV of 120 or greater then I believe you will have quite a few moments where you feel you are inside the game. However, I think you'll find that higher FOV is required for full time immersion.

@ Brantlew, I agree somewhat re VR competing with non VR gamers, but I can think of a few situations where VR could actually give you an advantage. You can just stick your eye around the corner to see, stick your gun aruond, and shoot, where non VR gamers would have to expose their entire body (if they don't have lean support). You can stick your gun through a hole in an obstacle and use the obstacle as a shield. In room clearing, you can stick it around the corner of the door and just spray....
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by Bishop51 »

Thanks WiredEarp. Having played the old Virtuality system I know exactly what you're saying.

Palmer on the other hand has had a very rare opportunity to play with cutting edge technologies not available to the public sector. He should be able to tell us, somewhat subjectively, about how the PR2 stacks up against the other units he's handle with respect to overall immersion. Is it an on again, off again sense of immersion that sort of works when it works or is it an always-on feeling of immersion?
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by ERP »

Eric Howlett of Leep claimed that around 70degrees was a tipping point.
His studies were done with cameras not rendered scenes, but the resolution was low.
I don't know of any real psychological studies on the subject, but it would surprise me if they hadn't been done.

I'd suspect that in rendered scenes there would be more contributors than just FOV.
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by 3dvison »

Let me ask this, with the PR2 or any HMD with a large fov. Is there a point, if the FOV is large enough, that it will begin to look as if, the floor/ground and ceiling/sky are under your feet and over your head ? Not right under your feet and over your head, but as if they are heading in the direction of your feet and head ? Or is there always a gap in that plane between you and the screen no matter how big the FOV is ?
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by PalmerTech »

bobv5 wrote:Wondering what the headphones would be like if you included them? Would they be suitable for binaural positional audio? Does the quality of the headphones even affect that?
It depends on the design. I would only include headphones if they were integral to the design and stability of the HMD, like with the VFX1. I am going to avoid that if I can, because people all have different sound budgets and preferences. As far as binaural audio goes, it depends on a lot of things. You want the quality to be as high as possible, and you want them to be in-ear for best results (I use HeadFi RE0s for in-ear, AD-700s for everything else). On top of that, a binaural recording should ideally be made using molds that are cast from your own ears. If your hearing system varies too much from the recording, the effect is greatly diminished, which might explain your results.

Bishop51 wrote:Since most of us haven't had the privilege of experiencing anything over 90d FOV, what is the actual immersive tipping point? Is there a calculable moment where you effectively trick the visual brain into feeling immersed? Does a hamstrung resolution destroy that immersion factor or does pixel diffusion make that a moot point?

Is that hoping for too much? Am I being unrealistic with my expectations of the PR2? Can I load up Skyrim and feel like I'm standing in a dark dungeon or an open, expansive cathedral?
I don't think there is an exact tipping point, nor is FOV the only factor. If you have good software and good tracking, then the resolution and FOV are definitely sufficient to feel a sense of presence! Getting commercial games good enough is a little tougher, since you cannot actually move and tilt your head in all the dimensions possible in real life. Pixel diffusion is a mixed bag. You lose a little sharpness, but get the huge advantage of not being able to see the pixels at all. One limitation of my HMD is that everything is at the same focal plane, but that is a problem that all displays have, be they 2D, 3D, HMD, projector, LCD, whatever.
WiredEarp wrote:I remember virtuality which I think was about 80-90 degrees (i'm a bit leary as to the specs posted on Vrealities or somewhere that claim it was less) and that had a very noticable black border
The Virtuality systems were only 70 degrees diagonally, surprisingly! Like you say, the black border is an immersion killer. With my high FOV lenses, you cannot see the edges of the display at all, the entire lens is filled with image. The FOV of the unit I sent to Cyberreality was about 110 degrees, my new lenses will beat that, with less distortion to boot. I could go all the way to 270 degree FOV, but like I said earlier, no way for normal games to render that!

As far as maintaining immersion/presence, that is tricky. 120 degrees is definitely enough to maintain a solid sense of presence, but hiccups like tracking jitter or having the HMD shift on your head are going to hold you back.

3dvison wrote:Let me ask this, with the PR2 or any HMD with a large fov. Is there a point, if the FOV is large enough, that it will begin to look as if, the floor/ground and ceiling/sky are under your feet and over your head ? Not right under your feet and over your head, but as if they are heading in the direction of your feet and head ? Or is there always a gap in that plane between you and the screen no matter how big the FOV is ?
Yes, there is a point where that happens. In fact, if you press the lenses of my HMD right up against your eyelashes, then the lenses (Which are fully filled by image) are actually reaching over your brow and cheek, so your vertical FOV is just as high as it is in real life! As long as the field of view is correctly rendered to match the HMD, then it will feel very much like the ground and sky are in their place.

Anything I missed? I am trying to see if there are ways I can "cheat" my way to a higher FOV that do not require special rendering, perhaps using plastic panels lit up with LEDs that match the colors onscreen.
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by WiredEarp »

Thanks PalmerTech, the high FOV of your PR systems sound wonderful.
perhaps using plastic panels lit up with LEDs that match the colors onscreen.
Bit like Ambilight eh! I had another idea for doing this passively - how about using mirrors or thin prisms around the edge that reflect/map the image edges. That way, if you have green and red pixels at the edges of the screen, the surroundings will also show green red to fill up your peripheral vision.
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by PalmerTech »

No way to do it effectively with mirror, unfortunately, I have tried. Using prisms or waveguides for a passive setup is possible, but there are issue with that, too. It weighs more (Especially prisms), and the brightness is far too low. A few pixels on the edge are just not very good for lighting a whole panel! I am going to try a little more work with waveguides made for frontlighting, but I am not sure it will work well enough.

I could also try just heavily blurring the side displays of my 270 degree unit, but movement is still going to be way too accelerated, so that is probably not a solution. Might just have to stick with 120 degree FOV, but with a light blocker, it is still very, very immersive.
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by 3dvison »

PalmerTech wrote: Might just have to stick with 120 degree FOV, but with a light blocker, it is still very, very immersive.
With the Sony and ST1080 being around 45-50degrees, I would kill to have a 120degrees HMD at a good price.
If going with 120 degrees gets your HMD to market faster, thats what I hope you do. 120 degrees over 45-50degrees will be a huge step for VR use.
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by SinSilla »

I'd prefer a solid and optimized ~120 degree fov with as little distortion as possible as well. Next best thing would be a higher resolution 16:9 panel if one becomes available that fits your design.
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by brantlew »

I agree that a well implemented 120 degree or even 90 degree unit would be preferable to a 270 degree unit that was "forced" or only usable with custom applications.
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by FingerFlinger »

I don't have much to add except "Yes please!"

Having played with the HMZ a little bit, I was definitely disappointed by the FOV, even though I know it is very good compared to other options! My only other HMD experience is the Aladdin's magic carpet ride at Disney World, so I probably was expecting too much. But 120 degrees sounds incredible!
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by 3dvison »

I just went back and looked at Cybers hands on video and Palmers, Turtle video, I think the HMD was 120deg with a diffuser at that point.
It Looked great..Wrap them up and ship-em out.
I'll log off and calm down.
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by WiredEarp »

120 degree HMD sounds great to me. We just need to sort a way to display normal software on it!

I'm not too sold on whether ambilight type stuff will be worthwhile unless it has significant resolution, but be interesting to hear how you get on.
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by Bishop51 »

Agreeing with the general sentiment here that 120 is probably the safe limit for most of us. And why I mean by "safe" is us futzing with the software FOV to get it close to or in excess of 90 degrees. That's possible in a lot of commercial games with a simple INI tweak here and there.

I would gamble that 90% of your buying audience is planning on using these things for commercial titles and not special research applications, so keeping your FOV down to reasonable levels is probably the smart move.

That being said, I think an option for some kind of Ambilight, peripheral setup would be amazing! Not necessary by any means but amazing none the less! Peripheral cues are more important than a lot of people realize and they aren't resolution dependent.
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by 3dvison »

So at this point can you just run games with a standard iz3d or DDD driver set to side by side mode with no hacks to the drivers or games ? If so, I would not mind using my 2D monitor for getting everything setup and ready to go, and then just putting on the HMD when the VR world is ready for me to enter.
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

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3dvison wrote:I just went back and looked at Cybers hands on video and Palmers, Turtle video, I think the HMD was 120deg with a diffuser at that point.
It Looked great..Wrap them up and ship-em out.
I'll log off and calm down.
Those videos were without a diffuser, actually. The pixels are not too bad even without a diffuser, and you get a brightness/contrast boost, but the diffuser makes the pixels completely invisible. I want to make it possible for people to try both out and go whichever way they prefer with this kit.
Bishop51 wrote:That being said, I think an option for some kind of Ambilight, peripheral setup would be amazing! Not necessary by any means but amazing none the less! Peripheral cues are more important than a lot of people realize and they aren't resolution dependent.
If it is an option, it probably won't ship with the kit. I want to make this design as modular and minimal as possible, so that adding new things or making a new shell is as easy as possible. Might want to make a wiki or something to list all the different modifications people can do.
3dvison wrote:So at this point can you just run games with a standard iz3d or DDD driver set to side by side mode with no hacks to the drivers or games ? If so, I would not mind using my 2D monitor for getting everything setup and ready to go, and then just putting on the HMD when the VR world is ready for me to enter.
At this point, only IZ3D drivers can give an undistorted image at the correct aspect ratio, and you need to do some custom resolution trickery. DDD drivers work in side by side mode, but the aspect ratio will not be correct, everything will be stretched.

Using a 2D monitor for setup is what I do most of the time.
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by bobv5 »

The hardware for ambilight is fairly easy. I built such a system, and while it was far from perfect it did work. The colours were a bit off, I suspect that is because I used a weak output stage, and I didn't have the knowledge to include gamma correction. (I built it from junk I had lying around, supossedly good schematics are avilable online, I suspect they work far better than my version)

The problem is that it uses drivers that some other guy made. He likes Linux. He doesn't seem to care about maintaning the windows version of his software.
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by PalmerTech »

Project is moving closer and closer to a finished product! Kickstarter discussion here: http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=120&t=14777
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by 3dvison »

Hey Palmer, this is the guy you should get as your spokesman.
In fact starting at the 5 sec mark, this could be your first ad on how amazing it is to use your HMD ...LOL

"Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body"
Palmer, that line will sell a million units for shure...LOL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz2dPiEgigY
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Re: PR2, a DIY, low cost, high FOV stereoscopic HMD

Post by cybereality »

LOL!
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