DIY Oculus Rift - schematics, instructions and build pics!

Post by **BOLL** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 5:03 am

Okta wrote:
space123321 wrote: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...
Do you realise your DIY Rift will not work with Rift supported software?

In the worst case scenario :P in the best case scenario there would be enough tweak settings to make any Rift prototype work, or any future consumer version. But, I guess we wont know this until the release of the SDK...

Post by **EdZ** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 5:05 am

Okta wrote:Do you realise your DIY Rift will not work with Rift supported software?

Only if the SDK is inflexible as to output. Seeing as the whole point of the SDK is to make it easy to allow a game to interface with different models of display (rather than just hard-coding the shader into each game), that seems an odd assumption.

Post by **Okta** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 5:21 am

EdZ wrote:
Okta wrote:Do you realise your DIY Rift will not work with Rift supported software?
Only if the SDK is inflexible as to output. Seeing as the whole point of the SDK is to make it easy to allow a game to interface with different models of display (rather than just hard-coding the shader into each game), that seems an odd assumption.

If teh Rift takes off i would imagine most commercial software will be hard coded?

Post by **EdZ** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 5:32 am

Okta wrote:If teh Rift takes off i would imagine most commercial software will be hard coded?

Why do you think that? It would be in their best interest to use the SDK rather than doing extra work duplicating the same effect.

Post by **mahler** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 7:07 am

Okta wrote:
EdZ wrote:
Okta wrote:Do you realise your DIY Rift will not work with Rift supported software?
Only if the SDK is inflexible as to output. Seeing as the whole point of the SDK is to make it easy to allow a game to interface with different models of display (rather than just hard-coding the shader into each game), that seems an odd assumption.
If teh Rift takes off i would imagine most commercial software will be hard coded?

It's not just other HMD's you have to think about, but using the SDK should ensure that future versions of the Rift will still work with the same code.

Post by **Okta** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 7:17 am

mahler wrote:It's not just other HMD's you have to think about, but using the SDK should ensure that future versions of the Rift will still work with the same code.

Say an android app is created for the Rift as an apk for the released 7 inch Rift without optical settings for different screens and lenses? Aren't you screwed with a 5.6 unless you have source access, SDK or no? Same with windows?

And if you have the released 7 inch Rift, will the SDK help you with using unsupported games with the Tridef driver? Also wondering how to setup VLC for the 7 inch Rift with standard SBS video?

Post by **braddas** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 7:20 am

mahler wrote:the SDK should ensure that future versions of the Rift will still work with the same code.

I agree, and it doesn't make sense to hard-code anything when the design of the rift is still in flux. There are ways of making that work but it would be awkward for devs. I'd also be surprised if Palmer and co. locked out the DIY enthusiast crowd, I thought the whole idea with this first phase was to allow developers (in all areas) to well, develop.

There could well be business concerns that means the SDK will be closed, but again, I'd be surprised.

EDIT: On second thought, if Oculus hard-coded settings for the various Rift versions, it would probably be easier for the software devs. Whenever a new version of the Rift came out you'd just update your drivers/sdk and probably not have to change anything else, assuming all the api calls remained unchanged.

Post by **Matoz** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 8:27 am

Hi guys,

before I go for my own DIY HMD with 7" display I would like to test the oculus footage on my 7" tablet with the 5x pocket loupe magnifier with Aspheric Lens I already bought. Can you guys tell me what the distance between the display and the lenses should be.

Regards Matoz

Post by **Okta** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 8:43 am

Matoz wrote:Hi guys,

before I go for my own DIY HMD with 7" display I would like to test the oculus footage on my 7" tablet with the 5x pocket loupe magnifier with Aspheric Lens I already bought. Can you guys tell me what the distance between the display and the lenses should be.

Regards Matoz

The distance that puts it in focus maybe?

Post by **Postipate** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 8:51 am

Hi. I usually play racing games and I really love the idea of Hmd. Im going to make my own oculus (already ordered parts), but I would like to know if anyone has been able to play any racing games with it. I would love to know experience about Rfactor 2.

Post by **Matoz** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 9:30 am

Okta wrote:
Matoz wrote:Hi guys,

before I go for my own DIY HMD with 7" display I would like to test the oculus footage on my 7" tablet with the 5x pocket loupe magnifier with Aspheric Lens I already bought. Can you guys tell me what the distance between the display and the lenses should be.

Regards Matoz
The distance that puts it in focus maybe?

Great answer. Let me ask a little bit different. What is the average distance where I can start to find the right distance for my eyes. I want to print something with my 3D printer and need somewhere to start...

Post by **braddas** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 10:10 am

I don't have the measurements to hand, but you could probably use Rod's design here as a reference (taken from here). The spacing will obviously be different, but the distance between the lenses and the screen should be the same.

Post by **ChrisP** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 12:12 pm

i have a acer tablit here with a 7" 1080p screen ... worth a try?
or will i need different optics?

Post by **3dvison** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 12:28 pm

Matoz wrote:Hi guys,

before I go for my own DIY HMD with 7" display I would like to test the oculus footage on my 7" tablet with the 5x pocket loupe magnifier with Aspheric Lens I already bought. Can you guys tell me what the distance between the display and the lenses should be.

Regards Matoz

Hey Matoz,
Would love to hear how the eye spacing feels to you on that 7"inch tablet. Just want to know if you feel it's too wide to work with..

Post by **Fredz** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 1:22 pm

ChrisP wrote:i have a acer tablit here with a 7" 1080p screen ... worth a try?
or will i need different optics?

Is there really such a tablet on the market ? The only 7" tablet I know from Acer has a 1024x600 resolution.

Post by **bobjwatts** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 4:18 pm

Matoz wrote:
Great answer. Let me ask a little bit different. What is the average distance where I can start to find the right distance for my eyes. I want to print something with my 3D printer and need somewhere to start...

The best thing to do is measure it yourself, hold the lenses in your hands and move them close to the tablet, although there are some guides in this thread for the measurement you should always measure it yourself, that's half the fun!

You can also search for "3d sbs" on youtube to find some side-by-side content you can play for testing.

Postipate wrote:Hi. I usually play racing games and I really love the idea of Hmd. Im going to make my own oculus (already ordered parts), but I would like to know if anyone has been able to play any racing games with it. I would love to know experience about Rfactor 2.

You can play any content that is side by side, ideally with the correct warping but there isn't that much around. You can use TriDef3d which has no warping but is still playable, see list of games here http://www.tridef.com/user-guide/supported-games

I have played CMR and a couple of the other guys one forum have too. Cockpit games are going to be awesome but will really require someone to implement the HMD capability in their game with free look.

3dvison wrote: Hey Matoz,
Would love to hear how the eye spacing feels to you on that 7"inch tablet. Just want to know if you feel it's too wide to work with..

I have been doing a heap of testing with a tablet and 7" is only just viewable for me without overlap, rough measurement is around 7cm IPD. As others have said some overlap will do the trick, just a bummer TriDef3D doesn't have overlap settings.

Post by **ChrisP** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 5:40 pm

yeah Fredz you are right its only 1024 x 600, it was an ICONIA TAB A100... could have got it for $75 off a friend, might as well save the money and put it toward a decent screen on ebay

thanks for the heads-up

Post by **3dvison** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 6:12 pm

bobjwatts wrote:
Matoz wrote: I have been doing a heap of testing with a tablet and 7" is only just viewable for me without overlap, rough measurement is around 7cm IPD. As others have said some overlap will do the trick, just a bummer TriDef3D doesn't have overlap settings.

Thanks bobjwatts,
So when you say the 7inch panel is "only just viewable for me without overlap" Does that mean don't buy the 7"inch panel buy the 5.6:incher ?
As you can tell, I just don't have a full grasp of "Overlap".
Does having No Overlap on the 7"inch panel, make it uncomfortable to view, or does it just mean the 7"inch panel has less of a 3D effect than the 5.6:inch panel which has more overlap ?

If the 7"inch panel is still comfortable to view, but just has less 3D effect, I think I would still choose the 7"inch panel, for its wider FOV.

As you can tell, I am very very close to buying parts and want to choose correctly.

Post by **Okta** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 6:35 pm

3dvison wrote:
bobjwatts wrote:
Matoz wrote: I have been doing a heap of testing with a tablet and 7" is only just viewable for me without overlap, rough measurement is around 7cm IPD. As others have said some overlap will do the trick, just a bummer TriDef3D doesn't have overlap settings.
Thanks bobjwatts,
So when you say the 7inch panel is "only just viewable for me without overlap" Does that mean don't buy the 7"inch panel buy the 5.6:incher ?
As you can tell, I just don't have a full grasp of "Overlap".
Does having No Overlap on the 7"inch panel, make it uncomfortable to view, or does it just mean the 7"inch panel has less of a 3D effect than the 5.6:inch panel which has more overlap ?

If the 7"inch panel is still comfortable to view, but just has less 3D effect, I think I would still choose the 7"inch panel, for its wider FOV.

As you can tell, I am very very close to buying parts and want to choose correctly.

The 5.6 original design was lucky in that each eye fell over the centre of each half of the SBS image with an equal view or 100% overlap. The larger screen is too wide so you eyes end up closer to centre and offset from the middle of each SBS view. The 7 inch panel need to have this fixed in software where as the 5.6 can use existing sbs to a degree (aside from the tall aspect ratio). You might be able to fudge the 7 inch screen by shifting out the lenses but it most likely will distort more and be uncomfortable, and again not compatible with the actual Rift. But maybe you can shift the lenses back to spec later when some software is realeased to use.
Even better, use the 7 inch screen and make the lenses adjustable sliding sideways for SBS content or Rift content?

Post by **bobjwatts** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 6:38 pm

3dvison wrote:
bobjwatts wrote:
Matoz wrote: I have been doing a heap of testing with a tablet and 7" is only just viewable for me without overlap, rough measurement is around 7cm IPD. As others have said some overlap will do the trick, just a bummer TriDef3D doesn't have overlap settings.
Thanks bobjwatts,
So when you say the 7inch panel is "only just viewable for me without overlap" Does that mean don't buy the 7"inch panel buy the 5.6:incher ?
As you can tell, I just don't have a full grasp of "Overlap".
Does having No Overlap on the 7"inch panel, make it uncomfortable to view, or does it just mean the 7"inch panel has less of a 3D effect than the 5.6:inch panel which has more overlap ?

If the 7"inch panel is still comfortable to view, but just has less 3D effect, I think I would still choose the 7"inch panel, for its wider FOV.

As you can tell, I am very very close to buying parts and want to choose correctly.

This is from a DIY Rift perspective and nothing to do with the real Rift 7" screen, because that is going to be awesome.

So, the content available for DIY rifters is limited and if you want to play games TriDef3d is one of the options and it does not have warping or overlap adjustment.

To get 7" convergence with the rfurlan 5x lenses requires the lenses to be a certain distance apart, depending on your personal IPD. For me, the distance that those lenses have to be apart means that I am partly viewing the edges of the lenses which have some distortion.

*note: Some of the other guys on the forum might be able to prove me wrong here but that's my understanding

That said, I am still happy I purchased the 7" - I think I will be able to tweak it to work, and I was thinking I might be able to lower the resolution and set it to no-scale in my nvidia settings, which will give me essentially a 6" screen if I want. When overlap content is available I can use the entire screen too.

Post by **3dvison** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 7:01 pm

OK now I am starting to get it.
Hey bobjwatts. did you see foisi build (Link Below)? Look at first page for parts used. He used a 7.2"inch panel so you should be able to make the 7" work.
http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... 349#p75349

Post by **bobjwatts** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 7:06 pm

3dvison wrote:OK now I am starting to get it.
Hey bobjwatts. did you see foisi build (Link Below)? Look at first page for parts used. He used a 7.2"inch panel so you should be able to make the 7" work.
http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... 349#p75349

Thanks for the link i hadn't seen that!

I'm confident, can't wait to get the screen, it's going to be sooo much better than my laggy splashtop solution.

Post by **3dvison** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 8:10 pm

bobjwatts wrote: I'm confident, can't wait to get the screen, it's going to be sooo much better than my laggy splashtop solution.

Hey bobjwatts, I see you also saw Parity's build with a 7"inch nexus 7 tablet.(Link Below)
I just took a quick look, but I don't see him talking about eye spacing problems in that thread..

This link has me leaning toward the 7"inch, I like the extra width without the need to use tape on the lenses as blinders.

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

Post by **tmek** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 8:16 pm

Just thought I would share some pics a little test rig a friend of mine made for me.

It allows me to adjust two things: the lens IPD and the focal distance to the view plane while keeping everything square. After adjustments everything stays in place for viewing. I basically set it all on top of a box on my desk to view. the board behind the view plane has enough space to act as little shelf for the the lcd controller electronics.

I'm still waiting on my lcd panel but in the mean time we printed out a stereo render from Doom3 at 1280x800 sized to the 5.6" display. The 3d effect was surprisingly good for such a dithered b/w picture.

Post by **bobjwatts** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 8:20 pm

3dvison wrote:
bobjwatts wrote: I'm confident, can't wait to get the screen, it's going to be sooo much better than my laggy splashtop solution.
Hey bobjwatts, I see you also saw Parity's build with a 7"inch nexus 7 tablet.(Link Below)
I just took a quick look, but I don't see him talking about eye spacing problems in that thread..

This link has me leaning toward the 7"inch, I like the extra width without the need to use tape on the lenses as blinders.

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

I had thought back to Parity's setup but hadn't asked the question. His lenses don't look too far apart. edit: Oh but look at his screen he doesn't have the image full screen so it's not the full 7"

Nice test setup @tmek

Post by **3dvison** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 8:56 pm

tmek,
Will you be setting it up, to test how well a 7"inch screen would work ?

I take it you did order a 5.6" panel ?

Post by **tmek** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 11:04 pm

3dvison wrote:tmek,
Will you be setting it up, to test how well a 7"inch screen would work ?

I take it you did order a 5.6" panel ?

I'm going to print out one at the 7" panel screen dimensions tomorrow after work (may go by Kinko's and get decent full color pics) I meant to do that today just ran out of time with real life stuff.

I did order the 5.6" panel from vitrolight although no indication that it has shipped yet.

Tomorrow I should be receiving the YEI 3 Space tracker as well. It requires a little soldering to get it up and running but I'm hopping I can get it going tomorrow too.

Post by **3dvison** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 11:22 pm

tmek wrote:
3dvison wrote:tmek,
Will you be setting it up, to test how well a 7"inch screen would work ?

I'm going to print out one at the 7" panel screen dimensions tomorrow after work (may go by Kinko's and get decent full color pics) I meant to do that today just ran out of time with real life stuff.

I would appreciate that.
Reading what you think about viewing the 7"inch picture through your test setup, would be my deciding factor in which size panel to buy.

Post by **brantlew** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 11:29 pm

tmek wrote:Tomorrow I should be receiving the YEI 3 Space tracker as well. It requires a little soldering to get it up and running but I'm hopping I can get it going tomorrow too.

Curious to head any impressions/reviews of this device since there is very little info out there about it.

Post by **ChrisP** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 6:34 am

free image hosting

Post by **Okta** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 6:40 am

ChrisP wrote:
free image hosting

Nope. You keep the lenses parallel and shift them out as per the previous diagram.

Post by **MaterialDefender** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 7:11 am

Light coming from the screen doesn't change its direction because you rotate the lenses... For something like that you would need a setup with prisms or mirrors. Some basic information on refraction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refraction

Also you might own a school book where these things are explained in greater detail.

Post by **mahler** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 7:13 am

Okta wrote:Nope. You keep the lenses parallel and shift them out as per the previous diagram.

Why not move the center of left- and right-image using warping?

Post by **Okta** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 7:16 am

mahler wrote:
Okta wrote:Nope. You keep the lenses parallel and shift them out as per the previous diagram.
Why not move the center of left- and right-image using warping?

Why move the mountain to Mohammed?

Post by **mahler** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 7:22 am

Okta wrote:
mahler wrote:Why move the mountain to Mohammed?

I actually consider hardware to be the mountain ... but would it result in a different experience?

Post by **MaterialDefender** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 7:22 am

mahler wrote:Why not move the center of left- and right-image using warping?

With high probability that is what will happen on the real Rift.

Post by **Okta** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 7:28 am

mahler wrote:
Okta wrote:
mahler wrote:Why move the mountain to Mohammed?
I actually consider hardware to be the mountain ... but would it result in a different experience?

The mountain of available content is the mountain. Why alter all that when you can build your device to suit.

Post by **MaterialDefender** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 7:33 am

Okta wrote:... Why alter all that when you can build your device to suit.

You can't. Not by only shifting the lenses anyway. That doesn't lower the distance between the image centers. You have to do both, shifting the lenses and the image inwards.

Post by **TheHolyChicken** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 7:36 am

Okta wrote:The mountain of available content is the mountain. Why alter all that when you can build your device to suit.

Let's imagine that future VR technology improves massively, and we can perfectly emulate real life vision in every detail. Due to all the huge FOV, and each eye receiving different pictures etc etc, it is not compatible with old methods of rendering content.

Will you still be complaining? Change IS going to be necessary, and I see no reason why it can't begin now.

EDIT: I thought it would work more like this:

Sorry if this picture is a bit confusing; it's modified from the previous picture so it doesn't 100% make sense on its own

Post by **MaterialDefender** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 7:43 am

TheHolyChicken wrote:EDIT: I thought it would work more like this:

And you're right.