DIY Oculus Rift - schematics, instructions and build pics!

[EdZ]

It's Win7 specific, but work with whatever graphics chipset you're using, nVidia/AMD/intel (if you find an intel board with multiple outputs, that is).

[djdevin]

That's curious, dj, as I have never had a problem with my LCD (the same one as yours). The first time I powered it up, Windows reported it as 1280x720, but I simply used the NVidia Settings dialog to change it to 1280x800 and it's recognized as such ever since. Maybe I'm missing something?

Could just be my video card, an old HD6450, but when I set it to 1280x800 through the control panel, the LCD would still report 1280x720 (720p) on the OSD. After digging in I found that it was trying to set the refresh rate to 75hz and the monitor wasn't having it. I had to add another timing manually for 1280x800@60hz and that was when the LCD turned on and the OSD reported that it was running at 800 and not 720. Nvidia settings dialog might be smarter.

[Yoder808]

Hmm. I've got the VGA/HDMI board, and mine always seems to scale (using a Moiré pattern to check for 1:1 pixel mapping). Is this the board you have djdevin?

On another note, I've been playing Dirt3 on mine, using the iPhone to send TrackIR. So far, it's awesome!

[Qoheleth]

I'm just curious, are most of you using the 7x SV-2LPLED lens or the 5x aspheric lens? I ask because the 7x lens has a 1.5 inch diameter but the 5x is 2 inches. I'm using the SV-2LPLED on my FOV2GO, and I find the lens a bit small, which kind of ruins the immersion factor since I can see the edges of the circle that was cut to hold the lens. I'm wondering if a larger lens diameter will make the edges of the lens holes you are looking through less apparent.

[Nick3DvB]

I’ve been wondering if we could use something like the 3Dfury to convert frame-packed 720p to Side by Side 720p? It would be no good for video but might allow us to use the AMD HD3D output / Nvidia 3DTVplay driver (along with something like Warp Inject). I wonder if Oculus have tried it?

What is the hardware panel scaling like guys, does it stretch 720p to fill the screen, is it very soft when you feed it 1080p? I’ve been going out of my way to encode pixel perfect native resolution videos but it would be interesting to compare them to the panels hardware scaling.

I’ve just uploaded some new Ambi-Light video samples, If any of you DIY’ers can test them out I’d really appreciate the feedback.

60fps 3D:

https://rapidshare.com/files/4200273682/SBS2_3D.mkv
https://rapidshare.com/files/3503306078/FIX90_3D.mkv
https://rapidshare.com/files/2917471896/WARPIN70_3D.mkv

https://rapidshare.com/files/2245506381/SBS_3D.mkv
https://rapidshare.com/files/2967655910/FIX110_3D.mkv
https://rapidshare.com/files/1828680122 ... N90_3D.mkv

60fps 2D:

https://rapidshare.com/files/4136566042/SBS_2D.mkv
https://rapidshare.com/files/691599072/FIX110_2D.mkv
https://rapidshare.com/files/1588061140 ... 100_2D.mkv

More details here:

http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... 885#p87885

thanks


EDIT: I have fixed my Rapidshare account, the download links should actually work now, doh!

If you still get an error try again in a few hours, the FIX90 file might actually be best for DIY Rifts?

[EdZ]

I’ve been wondering if we could use something like the 3Dfury to convert frame-packed 720p to Side by Side 720p? It would be no good for video but might allow us to use the AMD HD3D output / Nvidia 3DTVplay driver (along with something like Warp Inject).

If you have a method of unpacking the output of the 3D drivers, then you may as well do the conversion to SBS at the same time as performing the pre-warp, rather than using an external box.

[djdevin]

Hmm. I've got the VGA/HDMI board, and mine always seems to scale (using a Moiré pattern to check for 1:1 pixel mapping). Is this the board you have djdevin?

I had this pre-assembled LCD/board combo (same LCD) with HDMI/BNC in. I haven't checked Moire yet but I'm fairly sure it's running at unscaled 1280x800 now as that is what comes up on the OSD after I used a different monitor driver.

I'm just curious, are most of you using the 7x SV-2LPLED lens or the 5x aspheric lens? I ask because the 7x lens has a 1.5 inch diameter but the 5x is 2 inches. I'm using the SV-2LPLED on my FOV2GO, and I find the lens a bit small, which kind of ruins the immersion factor since I can see the edges of the circle that was cut to hold the lens. I'm wondering if a larger lens diameter will make the edges of the lens holes you are looking through less apparent.

I've only used the 5x lenses so I can't compare, but I haven't been able to see the edge of the lens, and just slightly the edge of the screen.

[Jotschi]

The just released DOOM3 BFG sources contains the warp shaders that are used with the rift:

Code: Select all

./neo/renderer/RenderSystem_init.cpp:           case STEREO3D_SIDE_BY_SIDE_COMPRESSED:  idLib::Printf( "STEREO3D_SIDE_BY_SIDE_COMPRESSED\n" ); break;
./neo/renderer/RenderSystem_init.cpp:           case STEREO3D_SIDE_BY_SIDE:                             idLib::Printf( "STEREO3D_SIDE_BY_SIDE\n" ); break;
./neo/renderer/RenderSystem_init.cpp:   if ( glConfig.stereo3Dmode == STEREO3D_SIDE_BY_SIDE || glConfig.stereo3Dmode == STEREO3D_SIDE_BY_SIDE_COMPRESSED ) {
./neo/renderer/RenderSystem_init.cpp:   if ( glConfig.stereo3Dmode == STEREO3D_SIDE_BY_SIDE && stereoRender_warp.GetBool() ) {
./neo/renderer/RenderSystem_init.cpp:   case STEREO3D_SIDE_BY_SIDE_COMPRESSED:
./neo/renderer/OpenGL/gl_backend.cpp:   case STEREO3D_SIDE_BY_SIDE:
./neo/renderer/OpenGL/gl_backend.cpp:           // just like STEREO3D_SIDE_BY_SIDE_COMPRESSED, so fall through.
./neo/renderer/OpenGL/gl_backend.cpp:   case STEREO3D_SIDE_BY_SIDE_COMPRESSED:
./neo/renderer/RenderSystem.h:  STEREO3D_SIDE_BY_SIDE_COMPRESSED,
./neo/renderer/RenderSystem.h:  STEREO3D_SIDE_BY_SIDE,

[troffmo5]

This should be the pixel shader code:
https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM-3-B ... Warp.pixel

[space123321]

I’ve been wondering if we could use something like the 3Dfury to convert frame-packed 720p to Side by Side 720p? It would be no good for video but might allow us to use the AMD HD3D output / Nvidia 3DTVplay driver (along with something like Warp Inject). I wonder if Oculus have tried it?

What is the hardware panel scaling like guys, does it stretch 720p to fill the screen, is it very soft when you feed it 1080p? I’ve been going out of my way to encode pixel perfect native resolution videos but it would be interesting to compare them to the panels hardware scaling.

I’ve just uploaded some new Ambi-Light video samples, If any of you DIY’ers can test them out I’d really appreciate the feedback.

60fps 3D:

https://rapidshare.com/files/4200273682/SBS2_3D.mkv
https://rapidshare.com/files/3503306078/FIX90_3D.mkv
https://rapidshare.com/files/2917471896/WARPIN70_3D.mkv

https://rapidshare.com/files/2245506381/SBS_3D.mkv
https://rapidshare.com/files/2967655910/FIX110_3D.mkv
https://rapidshare.com/files/1828680122 ... N90_3D.mkv

60fps 2D:

https://rapidshare.com/files/4136566042/SBS_2D.mkv
https://rapidshare.com/files/691599072/FIX110_2D.mkv
https://rapidshare.com/files/1588061140 ... 100_2D.mkv

More details here:

http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... 885#p87885

thanks

Great work - the ambi-light effect is alittle distracting at first however pretty cool once you adjust to it! I tested a few of these in my DIY rift before receiving the message "File owner's public traffic exhausted." from Rapidshare. My favorite was the 110 version however the warping effect was too pronounced, therefore the picture was still warped. I am a previous owner of an HMZ, and I would prefer to watch the massive picture in the Rift anyday! Films with black bars on the top an bottom screen actually look pretty good in the rift! So much potential here...!!! Thanks for sharing!

[brantlew]

@space123321: Interesting to hear that. Makes me want to try it out. Just think how sick it would be with head tracking.

[Nick3DvB]

Great work - the ambi-light effect is alittle distracting at first however pretty cool once you adjust to it! I tested a few of these in my DIY rift before receiving the message "File owner's public traffic exhausted." from Rapidshare. My favorite was the 110 version however the warping effect was too pronounced, therefore the picture was still warped. I am a previous owner of an HMZ, and I would prefer to watch the massive picture in the Rift anyday! Films with black bars on the top an bottom screen actually look pretty good in the rift! So much potential here...!!! Thanks for sharing!

Thanks! I'm working on ways to tone down the ambi-light relative to the screen, some sort of brightness mask shader might be an option, which could also help blend the screen edge a bit. I'm just guessing with the warp corrections, I'll have to see if I can make sense of John's Doom 3 shader. Did you try the FIX90 degree version, was that still under-corrected? (showing inward "pincushion" warping at the center). I think the rapidshare limit is 30GB but it should reset daily if you want to give it another try.

I'm looking into the best way to do head-tracking, we probably need to render to multiple D3D textures, a slightly zoomed base video texture and an ambi-light frame overlay with an alpha channel view-port we can pan around smoothly, I'm hoping sView might be able to do something similar but it might require a custom mediaplayer. I think the ability to pan (& roll! ) even a small amount might be very compelling if it is responsive enough, it should really add to immersion and help prevent HMD movie "motion sickness". But you don't want to have to swing your head around too much when watching regularly framed movies, and we probably don't really want to map head translations anyway, large lateral head motions might produce an uncomfortable stereoscopic effect. It took me a while to work out you need to invert pitch and yaw mappings to get the window effect right.

[space123321]

I have not grabbed the Fix90, and your 'traffic is still exhausted' lol... therefore I can't!

[Okta]

You know i was really shaking my head at you guys going to all the effort and expense to do this when you could have waited for the Kickstarter Rift. But with the update about the delay and 7 inch screen i think you did well with the DIY approach. Only problem now is if Oculus mess around with the warp correction/centring to counter the bigger screen that might leave these designs shipwrecked.

[space123321]

Why are they shipwrecked? I have been enjoying testing with mine for the past few months... and I will continue to enjoy playing, testing and simply lovin my DIY Rift. How is this a shipwreck? It simply gets me that much more pumped for the actual Rift and what is to come...

[EdZ]

All that's needed is to change some of the values in the avisynth script, and maybe add one or two for centre shift. Hardly shipwrecked.

[zalo]

Finally, we have some decently high resolution Rift game footage! Tell me how this Looks in your DIY rifts.

[braddas]

Hi everyone, been lurking here a few months since contributing to the kickstarter. I did have a play with building my own DIY Rift but didn't get much further than building the foamboard casing and gluing two lenses to it. At the moment it's got a phone-sized cavity that I can strap my phone to and view the FOV2GO demo, but I couldn't justify buying the rest of the kit when the Rift was on its way.

Now that the delay has been announced, I've decided I'm going to finish DIY kit after all. I've been pricing up LCDs as recommended by Rod (thanks very much for the guide by the way) but none of the LCD/Control board combos on eBay seem to come with a power supply. What sort of power supply should I be looking for? Sorry if that's a really silly question, but I know nothing about electronics. I don't think I've seen anyone talking about powering their screens on here.

Any advice appreciated.

[Cathodoluminescence]

I haven't participated in the kickstarter at all because I thought I could wait for the consumer version. But as that will take at least another year from now on, I'm thinking about my own DIY Rift ala Rod.

Does anybody know a good supplierfor display/board (best as combi) for Germany/EU - other than China (via ebay) ? Headtracking isn't important at the moment, could be added later...

[Matoz]

I haven't participated in the kickstarter at all because I thought I could wait for the consumer version. But as that will take at least another year from now on, I'm thinking about my own DIY Rift ala Rod.

Does anybody know a good supplierfor display/board (best as combi) for Germany/EU - other than China (via ebay) ? Headtracking isn't important at the moment, could be added later...

Hi there, I was thinking the exact same thing as I already have bought the 5" aspheric lenses. As the DevKit has moved to 7" is there a supplier for an 7" 1280x800 display with controller?

By the way, i am from Germany too.

[Cathodoluminescence]

Hi there, I was thinking the exact same thing as I already have bought the 5" aspheric lenses. As the DevKit has moved to 7" is there a supplier for an 7" 1280x800 display with controller?

By the way, i am from Germany too.

So far, I just found this chinese ebay seller: http://stores.ebay.de/chinatobby/_i.htm ... =485979119 Scroll down to find some 1280er (those around 100 € - keep in mind, we have to pay another 19 % for taxes)

[mahler]

So far, I just found this chinese ebay seller: http://stores.ebay.de/chinatobby/_i.htm ... =485979119 Scroll down to find some 1280er (those around 100 € - keep in mind, we have to pay another 19 % for taxes)

Would this one be sufficient? http://www.ebay.de/itm/HDMI-DVI-VGA-con ... 1005323160

[Bretspot]

OK it looks like everyone is linking to the:
N070ICG-LD1
Board, is that our new best guess as to what will be in the final Rift?
http://www.revo-sys.com/prodimages/LCD- ... asheet.pdf
Any other theories?

[Bretspot]

Ah, I found a site... I'm sure the panel is in here somewhere....
http://www.panelook.com/sizmodlist.php (the link doesn't work 100% properly, click on size list and choose 7")
Kinda interesting, but damn, that's a lot of panels. Too bad there a no 1920x1200 7" panels out there in this range.

[Fredz]

What sort of power supply should I be looking for? Sorry if that's a really silly question, but I know nothing about electronics. I don't think I've seen anyone talking about powering their screens on here.

I've got the small HDMI/VGA board and use it with the power supply of a Freebox v3.

The specs :
MODEL NO : DA-1212A
INPUT : 100-240V ~ 50/60Hz 0.5A
OUTPUT : 12V ⎓ 1.2A

[braddas]

Thanks Fredz, that's just the info I was looking for!

I think I'll go for this one, it's listed as 12v 1.2A, but it says the amperage isn't forced and should be compatible with devices that require anything between 0.5-2A. Not entirely sure what amperage the LCD will require so that sounds like a good thing.

[3dvison]

So a question for the old pro's here.
If you were going to build a new DIY RIFT today, would you now use a 7"inch panel or just stick with the 5.6"panel ?
Please chime in with some Pro's and Con's....

[brantlew]

I actually think this might be a more interesting build now, and congrats to Parity for being so prophetic with the design. All told - it's probably cheaper and vastly easier to put together and would give you similar characteristics to the Rift plus you've got an integrated head tracker and it's totally wireless ! The downside is that you have to stream content at a crummy 30 FPS (although I'm itching to see if that could be improved with stereo compression). So for a quick looksy I don't think you can beat it.

http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... 607#p84593

[3dvison]

brantlew,
Can you run windows through that Nexus7 some how or can you only use Android games on it ?

[brantlew]

brantlew,
Can you run windows through that Nexus7 some how or can you only use Android games on it ?

You have to use a wireless streaming app to go from PC to Android - which is why your frame rates are limited.

[3dvison]

brantlew,
Can you run windows through that Nexus7 some how or can you only use Android games on it ?

You have to use a wireless streaming app to go from PC to Android - which is why your frame rates are limited.

Thanks brantlew,
So if I go Nexus7 or the regular old DIY RIFT talked about here, do you think 7"inch screen is the way to go ?

[Fredz]

If you were going to build a new DIY RIFT today, would you now use a 7"inch panel or just stick with the 5.6"panel ?

I would use a 7" display.

From the Kickstarter update it seems to be much better quality on many aspects (color, contrast, latency) and it doesn't suffer from the limited width of the previous panel (120.96mm => 6.048cm separation). It should also probably give a better HFOV, but I don't know how much.

Foisi also started building a DIY HMD one year ago with a 7.2" 1280x768 display (Sharp LQ072K1LA03). At first he decided to tilt the lenses outward because their size wasn't compatible with his nose, but he later decided to keep them straight and instead modify the rendering by zooming and shifting the images. From the Kickstarter images the lenses look straight too, so I guess the rendering should also be adapted in a similar way (by modifying the camera matrices at the rendering level for games or stereo drivers).

[Mel]

I’ve been wondering if we could use something like the 3Dfury to convert frame-packed 720p to Side by Side 720p? It would be no good for video but might allow us to use the AMD HD3D output / Nvidia 3DTVplay driver (along with something like Warp Inject). I wonder if Oculus have tried it?

What is the hardware panel scaling like guys, does it stretch 720p to fill the screen, is it very soft when you feed it 1080p? I’ve been going out of my way to encode pixel perfect native resolution videos but it would be interesting to compare them to the panels hardware scaling.

I’ve just uploaded some new Ambi-Light video samples, If any of you DIY’ers can test them out I’d really appreciate the feedback.

60fps 3D:

https://rapidshare.com/files/4200273682/SBS2_3D.mkv
https://rapidshare.com/files/3503306078/FIX90_3D.mkv
https://rapidshare.com/files/2917471896/WARPIN70_3D.mkv

https://rapidshare.com/files/2245506381/SBS_3D.mkv
https://rapidshare.com/files/2967655910/FIX110_3D.mkv
https://rapidshare.com/files/1828680122 ... N90_3D.mkv

60fps 2D:

https://rapidshare.com/files/4136566042/SBS_2D.mkv
https://rapidshare.com/files/691599072/FIX110_2D.mkv
https://rapidshare.com/files/1588061140 ... 100_2D.mkv

More details here:

http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... 885#p87885

thanks


EDIT: I have fixed my Rapidshare account, the download links should actually work now, doh!

If you still get an error try again in a few hours, the FIX90 file might actually be best for DIY Rifts?

Heh Nick,

A quick note to say I downloaded and watched https://rapidshare.com/files/3503306078/FIX90_3D.mkv on my DIY HMD. Couple of things:

1. Your barreling algo is too aggressive. The top and bottom edges are still quite bowed (upward and downward, respectively).
2. Is there a reason why you don't/can't stretch the image to full screen width? The empty bands on the left and right are begging for video.

It's a bit of an odd experience watching a movie this way in that it somewhat feels like looking at a huge screen due to the fact that I actually have to move my eyes a fair distance to look at the outer edges of the image, yet the low resolution puts the lie to the illusion. Does that make any sense? Also, the 3D doesn't sit well with me (and never has)...too much strain on my eyes and brain. Personal dislike.

I will try to grab a picture of what I see and post it tomorrow. In the meantime, I am going to grab a different one and provide another non-scientific analysis.

Thanks for posting these.

[EdZ]

2. Is there a reason why you don't/can't stretch the image to full screen width? The empty bands on the left and right are begging for video.

The idea is to keep the image to the maximum 50° viewing angle recommended for cinema screens. Too wide, and you strain your eyes trying to see everything in a film that was not designed to fill that much of your view.

[brantlew]

2. Is there a reason why you don't/can't stretch the image to full screen width? The empty bands on the left and right are begging for video.

The idea is to keep the image to the maximum 50° viewing angle recommended for cinema screens. Too wide, and you strain your eyes trying to see everything in a film that was not designed to fill that much of your view.

That's ironic since it's the same viewing angle as the HMZ-T1. So you aren't gaining the benefit of the high FOV. With the higher resolution and better color (not to mention built in video decoding), the Sony is almost certainly the better device for movie watching.

[EdZ]

That's ironic since it's the same viewing angle as the HMZ-T1. So you aren't gaining the benefit of the high FOV. With the higher resolution and better color (not to mention built in video decoding), the Sony is almost certainly the better device for movie watching.

That's probably why Sony chose it. For watching movies, TV, and for unmodified (and non head-tracked) gaming, the HMZ-Tx HMDs are going to be vastly superior to the Rift due to the resolution, contrast, and response rate of the OLED displays. Throwing high FoV and head tracking in is where the Rift pulls way ahead.

[Jotschi]

I'm using http://bino3d.org/ to test my HMD. It supports various formats. Prewarping of the output video is not yet supported. I patched the player so that i'm able to set larger parallax values. For the rift dev clones this might not be necessary. When dealing with two screens and a different viewing angle this is definitely a must.

While building my HMD http://www.jotschi.de/?page_id=793 i noticed that the 7+1 driver board for the HV056WX1-100 display provides a better lvds signal compared to the NT68674.5X board. Can someone confirm this? I'm powering the NT68674.5X with 7.5V.

[Nick3DvB]

That's ironic since it's the same viewing angle as the HMZ-T1. So you aren't gaining the benefit of the high FOV. With the higher resolution and better color (not to mention built in video decoding), the Sony is almost certainly the better device for movie watching.

There's no doubt that there are many HMDs much better suited to movie viewing, but I think it's still worth experimenting with on the Rift as higher resolution panels make it more viable in the future. The ambi-light bars are a rather crude attempt to make some use of the "spare" FOV, when coupled with head-tracking it could be quite effective. For the foreseeable future studios will continue to shoot movies to be viewed from distance on a flat screen so, without adding yet another degree of separation through a virtual cinema experience, we will have to find ways to accommodate that. Video shot specifically for the Rift using ortho-stereoscopic POV cameras will be amazing, but we're going to have to produce all that content ourselves... But there is already a POV comedy show in the UK called Peep Show (best comedy on TV IMHO) lets hope if VR really kicks-off this time some future TV shows will be shot specifically for HMDs.

[tmek]

One thing i haven't seen mentioned is the placement and orientation of the tracker module on the HMD. Where should it go and how much does it matter? Does it have to be oriented a certain way? Or can the orientation be offset via drivers and whatnot?

[MaterialDefender]

Due to the Rifts delay I just joined the DIY-crew, despite having absolutely zero experience in assembling something like this...

Since the Rift devkit isn't using the 5.6" display anymore, I chose a 7" model instead, conveniently sold together with a matching controller board. Just in case anyone is interested:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HDMI-DVI-VGA-co ... OC:DE:3160

Also I chose slightly larger lenses with a diameter of 5.7cm instead of the 5cm ones from rfurlans building instructions, mainly to make sure they are able to cover the larger display without having to add more space between lenses and screen. Although I don't really think this is neccessary. Those can be obtained here (somewhat more expensive than the proposed ones and the page is available in German only):

http://www.lupenshop.de/content/lupensh ... /View/1861

Regarding the mounting I will go the foam+ski goggles road, seems to be the best option to get somewhere as fast as possible.