DIY Oculus Rift - schematics, instructions and build pics!

Post by **wileythecoyote** » Wed Jun 26, 2013 12:45 am

Why are you arguing over the screen size?
It's easy to figure out what size screen is the best for devkit mod with just easy elementary school math.
Just take of the a cups. Measure the focal lengt in the devkit, which is about an inch. Hold the lens inch above a ruler and measure the distance you're able to see in the best case scenario. Remember to only look forward not the edges.
As a result I got just about 6cm (2.35 inches). Multiply it by 2 and add 5mm for lens separation to achieve the 64mm IPD. 12.5 cm (4.92) is the minimum width of the screen. Divide that by the aspect ratio (of 16:9) and you get the height of the screen 7.03 cm (or 2.77 inches).
You should now be able to calculate the diagonal of the screen √[(7.03^2)+(12.5^2)]=14.34 cm or 5.64 inches.

Personally i rather waste 100 or pixels of that 1080p panel than risk seeing the left and right edges. If you go with the smaller panel instead and see the edges, you can always bring it a one or two millimeters closer to the lenses. That should not make a huge difference in focal lenght, but eliminate the problem of seeing the edges.

If you are talking about 16:10 panels then I need to recalculate

Post by **Inscothen** » Wed Jun 26, 2013 1:48 am

I'm just asking if anyone wanted to see if their own test matches mine. Others have different IPD and preference on how close to get to the lenses. This way they can test to see what they might like. I don't care what anyone uses but I'd like to let people know what I've seen so they can decide on what they want.

Post by **Alesh** » Wed Jun 26, 2013 12:00 pm

@Alesh - it's very likely that your card is picking up the Vitrolight EDID just fine, otherwise the boot logo wouldn't show.
It sounds like you just need to activate the secondary display in your graphics driver. If you don't see the option, then you may not have the full driver installed?
Which graphics card are you using, and do you have the latest drivers installed?

Thanks for tip Ozone. Tried the secondary display setup. The thing is I had the 5.6" display already plugged in as the only display and it still doesn't get recognized through DVI. I have the latest Nvidia drivers (670GTX). I found out that this controller board is known to have the DVI connection issues, so I'll just use the VGA input - the cable is a bit lighter than DVI anyway, though still heavier than HDMI

Btw, count me in for that HD display + controller order. Hope it's not too expensive though..

Post by **3dvison** » Wed Jun 26, 2013 4:57 pm

My 5.9inch 1080p display is not here yet..I am going to start a Shipping/Arrival Thread...LOL

But really, I do think the faster the better to get this going, everyday is a day closer to the consumer Rift.
As I said before, If you look at the start of this thread, I thought for sure people would be falling all over themselves to get their hands on a 5.5 or 5.9 inch 1080p screen.
Now that I have used a Dev.Kit.Rift I want it even more than when I started my Diy Rift Build 6 months ago.

I have read most of this thread, and I thought a 6 inch 1080p screen, was considered to be the Holy Grail of panels for a Rift ? Unless a higher rez. 6inch was available of course...Isn't the 5.9 1080p screen almost too good to be true in the world of Diy Rifting and Modding ???

Notice: I am not selling these panels, I know it is starting to sound like I am...LOL

Post by **Inscothen** » Thu Jun 27, 2013 12:17 am

OzOnE2k10's the one talking with potential HDMI-MIPI circuit builders and Oz is putting it on hold(i think) till after Glastonbury Festival and getting the datasheet for the 5.9" to rozsnyo(?)

If you go back to some of Oz's posts you can see how you might be able to help speed this along.

Post by **wileythecoyote** » Thu Jun 27, 2013 12:07 pm

Any news for the availability of the panels and the converter/controller-board?
I'd gladly pay another 300 for the less pixelated oculus experience

Post by **Maotun** » Fri Jun 28, 2013 4:41 pm

Can't we use low-power, low-cost single board computer (like snowball http://www.stericsson.com/developers/Snowball_flyer.pdf) for hdmi-mipi solution ? Can't this boards (with android os) also provides widi (with splashtop 2, etc) and 9 Dof imu (with wireless imu, etc) for HMD ?

Post by **Inscothen** » Fri Jun 28, 2013 6:57 pm

Those snowballs are like $100-200 by themselves and I don't think they have HDMI in so you'd be limited to streaming a video signal in or running your games off the cortex a9. I think a HDMI-MIPI circuit can cost as low as $40 plus shipping, if made in high enough numbers and you get one from the right maker. The TI HDMI chip is like $5-9 and the Solomon ssd2828 MIPI chip is probably around $7. With the rest of the components and all soldered onto the pcb could be MUCH cheaper than the snowball unless you just wanna run off the cortex.

Hey 3dvision, where did you find that 5.9"?

wileythecoyote wrote:Any news for the availability of the panels and the converter/controller-board?
I'd gladly pay another 300 for the less pixelated oculus experience

I'm guessing we will hear on Monday or Tuesday from OzOnE2k10, and I think we can go much lower than $300 as long as the panel isn't too much(I've seen the 5.5" for around $50-80, I don't know about any larger panel prices).

Post by **3dvison** » Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:56 pm

Inscothen wrote: Hey 3dvision, where did you find that 5.9"?

I was just parroting what I thought I had read about earlier in this thread . Or was only a 5.5 inch 1080P screen available ?

Post by **Inscothen** » Fri Jun 28, 2013 11:57 pm

oh, yeah the 5.5 should be very easy to get but I think we should try for the 5.9 if we can get it. if not available now it'll probably be available in a few months when big phones or small tablets start using it.

Post by **wileythecoyote** » Sat Jun 29, 2013 5:37 am

Hopefully someone can make this mod soon and confirm functionality.
Then I can stop waiting for those 7" inch sharp igzo panels.

Post by **Raptor5150** » Sun Jun 30, 2013 8:40 pm

Dont forget 1080p nexus 7 supposadly coming end of july.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/1100 ... 6973962154

http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comment ... f_nexus_7/

Post by **mr.uu** » Mon Jul 01, 2013 9:22 am

So, have my iPad retina displays and the rozsnyo DP-boards with the power bricks and one rift in front of me.
Nevertheless my Frankenrift build has to wait another two weeks. Why? I go on holidays!

Will definately try when i am back. Tried the lenses on my iPad4 displaywhile watching youtube rift videos and was much less but not zero screendoor noticeable. Saw a different pattern of subpixels, looked like a quad-config versus the rifts triple-config.

As said, if you order any of the 5.x displays and rozsnyo (my hero) or anybody makes a converter board for it, count me double in (want to improve two of my rifts that way)!

Btw, i disagree with Palmer, saying that it would be to complicated to offer an upgrade or they would have to test each individual combo, etc.. Just order a bunch of the displays and converter boards, mix it with a new front mask (or offer at least the 3d-print files) and sell them to us with little profit...

Post by **wileythecoyote** » Tue Jul 02, 2013 8:08 am

This would be ideal screen for rift:

http://www.gizbot.com/mobile/galaxy-not ... 12757.html
5.99 inch amoled. No refresh issues and contrast would be far superior to the lcd-tech.

Post by **Inscothen** » Wed Jul 03, 2013 11:55 am

Wow I'd love to get my hands on one of those samsung OLEDs. Superior black levels alone would be great to experience in a HMD. Kinda worried the screen alone might be $200 with it being hard to source but if we could try running at 120hz+ and maybe having reduced latency even at 60hz.

Those are rumored to be released in September, how long before replacement screens are available?

Hopefully LG is working on those mobile OLED screens for release soon so it'd be easier to get a hold of one and be cheaper too.

Post by **rfurlan** » Tue Jul 09, 2013 4:35 pm

Our humble DIY thread was just mentioned over here:
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/beyond ... y-movement

Post by **3dvison** » Tue Jul 09, 2013 4:57 pm

Is there a way, to have our Diy Rifts built using a Hillcreast, YEI Space, or any other tracker, to be seen as a "REAL" Rift by the computer and also Real Rift Software & Demos ?..That seems to be the one thing missing, that Diy Rifts builders could really use.

Post by **Inscothen** » Tue Jul 09, 2013 7:05 pm

that's cool rfurlan.

No update on the MIPI panels or circuit? Oz?

On another note, has anyone tried these lenses? From the AS-6 45mm 6x lenses? http://www.magnifier.com/aspheric_magnifiers.htm

I think it would be a good trade off between the Rift lenses and the 50mm. Less distortion in the same space than the Riftcups, if your eyes just brush the lenses then the bigger diameter would fill your eye's FOV than the Rift lenses, not require the nose cutout of the 50mm.

3dvision: about the DIY tracker's being used on official games? It would take some work without using the Rift's tracker and controlbox. If we built our own tracker using the same parts as the Rift's then maybe we could get it to work. maybe

Post by **Inscothen** » Mon Jul 15, 2013 3:28 am

For anyone going for the 7" I think I found Nexus 7 2's LCD panel JDI(Japan Display Inc) LT070ME05000. I didn't see it mentioned before.

Post by **Croccy22** » Mon Jul 15, 2013 7:25 am

Just in case anyone is interested I have just uploaded all the STL files and google sketchup files for my 3D printable DIY Rift.

The instructions are practically non existent at the moment but I will update them later. If you read through this thread then everything is fairly straight forward.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:118291

Feel free to make any changes etc. Would be very interested to see peoples end result if anyone gives it a try. Mine is working perfectly

.

Matt.

Post by **Sid** » Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:34 am

Croccy22 wrote:Just in case anyone is interested I have just uploaded all the STL files and google sketchup files for my 3D printable DIY Rift.

Likewise on the 3D printable DIY front, though we've yet to upload the STL. Wasn't sure on whether it was appropriate or not seeing how close it was to the Rift.
Thread here.
Loving the use of 3D printers though, looks great!

I love the concept of customized HMDs.

Post by **Raptor5150** » Wed Jul 17, 2013 3:26 pm

http://www.androidcentral.com/nexus-7-s ... 9-32gb-269

1080p screen

Boys July 24th our rift HD upgrade is here.

Post by **CharlesK** » Wed Jul 17, 2013 4:47 pm

First post on the forums, I've been working on my diy rift for the last couple of weeks. i just ordered a screen and lenses. I've been busy working out a good head tracking (orientation) to go with the viewing part.

For around 25$ i made a fully functioning head tracking system that works with vireio using freepie. freepie can also emulate any game that supports track ir. took me quite a while to figure out how to properly calibrate it and get it working with 0 drift issues. i thought i'd see if there's any interest for a tutorial or if you guys already figured out something similar.

i used a gy-85 9dof sensor
Arduino (uno or nano)

a razor imu can also be used but they cost around 100$

EDIT: if anyone knows if it'd be possible to get official oculus supported games to work with this we'd have a winner.

Post by **3dvison** » Wed Jul 17, 2013 6:52 pm

Raptor5150 wrote:http://www.androidcentral.com/nexus-7-s ... 9-32gb-269

1080p screen

Boys July 24th our rift HD upgrade is here.

So can we just use one of those apps that allows the nexus 7 to be used as a second monitor for a computer running windows ? Or is there too much lag doing that ?

Post by **Raptor5150** » Wed Jul 17, 2013 7:08 pm

3dvison wrote:
Raptor5150 wrote:http://www.androidcentral.com/nexus-7-s ... 9-32gb-269

1080p screen

Boys July 24th our rift HD upgrade is here.
So can we just use one of those apps that allows the nexus 7 to be used as a second monitor for a computer running windows ? Or is there too much lag doing that ?

No no. You gut the thing or get the screen from one and hopefully its MIPI and plug it into the Dev kits connector and it should work since I heard the controller board is open and not locked down.. if not swap out the controller board??

Im hoping it will be that simple.

Post by **baggyg** » Thu Jul 18, 2013 5:36 am

CharlesK wrote: EDIT: if anyone knows if it'd be possible to get official oculus supported games to work with this we'd have a winner.

I have a similar setup using a YEI space sensor. Like you I can play using freePIE and the sharedMemoryTracker (Virieo).
Getting this working with the official rift demos is a big issue. I am personally hoping to create a frankenrift when a decent screen candidate comes out with MIPI to avoid this issue.

However I think the answer will lie in being able to write / emulate sensor readings in much the same way you can do with freePIE / trackIR. However this is not straight forward since freePIE Oculus support is just written via a C++ dll, from C# rather than a proper API. Someone would need to download the latest Oculus SDK and build the injects and override a lot of the inbuilt functions. Even then it could be a difficult task depending on the tracker driver and what that is doing.

Post by **CyberVillain** » Thu Jul 18, 2013 4:16 pm

baggyg wrote:
CharlesK wrote: EDIT: if anyone knows if it'd be possible to get official oculus supported games to work with this we'd have a winner.
I have a similar setup using a YEI space sensor. Like you I can play using freePIE and the sharedMemoryTracker (Virieo).
Getting this working with the official rift demos is a big issue. I am personally hoping to create a frankenrift when a decent screen candidate comes out with MIPI to avoid this issue. However I think the answer will lie in being able to write / emulate sensor readings in much the same way you can do with freePIE / trackIR. However this is not straight forward since freePIE Oculus support is just written via a C++ dll, from C# rather than a proper API. Someone would need to download the latest Oculus SDK and build the injects and override a lot of the inbuilt functions. Even then it could be a difficult task depending on the tracker driver and what that is doing.

Oculus SDK is a cpp lib linked at compile time, which means each game or software as its own version of the sdk built into the program. This means there is no entry point to inject our fake SDK. Only way would be to fake the actual HID device and fake the raw data being sent. I don't know if such a fake HID driver exists.

Edit: There exists a virtual HID driver
Its not signed so won't work on x64 systems without running in test mode (as with ppjoy)

https://code.google.com/p/vmulti/wiki/B ... lingVMulti

I'm busy with faking Sixense SDK but maybe someone else want to give it a try

Post by **geekmaster** » Thu Jul 18, 2013 5:28 pm

Is this relevant? How about DLL injection, like Vireio or VorpX do?

cybereality wrote:Just FYI: Our Unity implementation actually uses a DLL to interface with the Rift (OculusPlugin.dll in the plugins folder). We don't have any documentation around this, but it may be useful to some people if you can look at the C# code and see how it's working.

Of course, that would only work with Unity apps.

You can also do EXE injection, so some things in a statically-compiled app can also be hooked and modified by an injector.

Post by **thebrown** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 6:07 am

Would it at all be possible to get the same VR effect using a 27" 1440p monitor? Said contraption would rest on a desk Virtual boy style.

Post by **thebrown** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 6:11 am

Or...

Post by **3dvison** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 5:37 pm

thebrown wrote:Would it at all be possible to get the same VR effect using a 27" 1440p monitor?

Only if your eyes are very far apart....like east coast and west coast..

Post by **geekmaster** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 5:43 pm

3dvison wrote:
thebrown wrote:Would it at all be possible to get the same VR effect using a 27" 1440p monitor?
Only if your eyes are very far apart....like east coast and west coast..

Or with mirrors...

Post by **thebrown** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 5:56 pm

How would I do it with mirrors? Would it still be an immersive vr experience like oculus? More work than it's worth? I appreciate the replies, I know it's kind of out there...

Post by **3dvison** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 6:09 pm

thebrown wrote:How would I do it with mirrors? Would it still be an immersive vr experience like oculus? More work than it's worth? I appreciate the replies, I know it's kind of out there...

http://www.amazon.com/Adjustable-Stereo ... pd_sim_p_6

Post by **thebrown** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 9:30 pm

Last thing..Using the "mirror technique", would using 2 ipad 3 displays be a way to go? Someone point me in the right direction?
EDIT: Found what I'm looking for.

Post by **OzOnE2k10** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 11:10 pm

Getting very close to sourcing the 5.5" 1080p panels guys.

I'm hoping my Rift will be here in about a week's time too (status finally changed to Processing).
That way, I can figure out the best way to fit the "upgrade", but it may require a small amount of DIY knowledge.

Can't say too much, but let's just say work is still in progress.
We're trying to go for the 5.5" if possible rather than ~5", as I know you guys said it was on the limit for good FOV.

(A 7" panel might be worth looking at too, but for now we want to get the 5.5" working and see how it goes.)

I'm certainly not worried about stripping down my shiny new Rift when it arrives if it means getting 1080p sorted.
I'll have to tear myself away from the wonderful alternate realities for a while.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcOHSlJjbVs

Post by **3dvison** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 11:40 pm

OzOnE2k10 wrote:Getting very close to sourcing the 5.5" 1080p panels guys.

Oh Gawd I hope this really happens.....
OzOnE2k10, If you pull this off, you will be the wizard of Oz....Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, just look at the beautiful 1080p screen in your Rift...The great OZ has spoken...LOL

Post by **OzOnE2k10** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 11:56 pm

3dvison wrote:
OzOnE2k10 wrote:Getting very close to sourcing the 5.5" 1080p panels guys.
Oh Gawd I hope this really happens.....
OzOnE2k10, If you pull this off, you will be the wizard of Oz....Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, just look at the beautiful 1080p screen in your Rift...The great OZ has spoken...LOL

It will only be because of the huge amount of help from others, and people on this forum.

A certain talented gentlemen is current working very hard on getting the MIPI boards done (actually, they're pretty much ready).

He's also been very busy sending off e-mails and hunting down the panels. I think you know who I mean.

Without his help, I don't think this would be happening before the consumer version was released.

If this works out, all credit due will go to the relevant people, that's for sure.

Post by **Hannibalj2** » Thu Jul 25, 2013 12:20 am

This all sound very promising!!

Post by **OzOnE2k10** » Thu Jul 25, 2013 12:41 am

5" and 5.5" panels just ordered for prototype testing.

Will be a few more weeks for delivery and other stuff.

Just need to find a few of the connectors now.

OzOnE.