Introducing the // DUO

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Fredz
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Introducing the // DUO

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GeraldT
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

Post by GeraldT »

hehe .. yeah seems as cool as the LEAP, but I think they are way behind and have no chance against a company with a funding like LEAPmotion.

I am in the LEAP dev program and while they are very frustrating on the outside (about as much information on the SDK as you get from Oculus ^^), they are almost awesome on the inside. At least from what I have seen so far, my device has not yet reached me and I only downloaded the SDK. They offer help and answer questions in time. I can't wait to start implementing the LEAP!

And they will announce the release in the next 2 weeks! Also they are selling it through BestBuy ... good bye DUO!

That said ... I think they might get the kickstarter funded, but I don't think they will help the cause with that. I don't like the fragmentation.
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

Post by Fredz »

I'd say it's not exactly the same goal.

The Leap is a consumer product with low latency, high precision and as little control over it as you'd expect from a commercial product (have a look at this comment) and the DUO is a DIY Open Source kit which should be highly customizable and can be build by anyone from off-the-shelf parts, at the expense of low precision and high latency.

I'd say I'm equally excited by both, but not for the same reasons.
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

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from the viewpoint of the consumer this is the same product with another name! this is important if you analyze the chances ... the DIY projects are fun, but they never reach the masses (if there are established comparable products ... the Rift is the exception, not the rule and not really DIY).

I have read the comment - and he is right in many points (VR & LEAP), but ...
"Large hand gestures, or clumsy manipulations might work, but intricate and subtle finger movements are unlikely to work well."
... that is just wrong. You need to work within the limitations, but then you can do incredibly cool and precise stuff. And you can do it fast!

Also you can use more than one! So if you really need a bigger space for detection ...

The tech is young, give it some time. But I don't really see what the DUO does different (besides being open source). Please tell me, because I do lack motivation to learn what it is all about.
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

Post by MSat »

Aww man.. Server went down after clicking a few links. It sounds cool so far! I like the idea of a more open version of the Leap Motion.
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

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@GeraldT

The open source nature makes it possible for more hardware manufacturers to create cheap, compatible devices. If the market was flooded with more of these things than the Leap Motion, it's probably safe to say that the former would get more developer support. Also, it makes it a lot cheaper for hardware manufacturers who would like to implement this as a part of their end product, it could be a lot cheaper than having to license the tech from Leap.

Edit: I see that it's not actually open source other than perhaps the hardware (which I don't really know how it could open source if it's built on Sony's copyrighted hardware).
Last edited by MSat on Tue Feb 19, 2013 8:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

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Wow, for someone who's followed the Leap from the day it was announced, it's amazing to see how blatantly Code Laboratories copied the Leap's website and techniques.

Funnily enough, before I was accepted into the dev program, I had the idea that I'd make a mock-leap with my two PS3 eye cameras, and now the gosh darn DRIVER MAKERS are doing it!

Leap tried to play it safe by attempting to get their patents in there before anyone else could come close, and now I see why they were/are so paranoid.

It's a good thing that CL doesn't have the leap's structured light secret sauce (at least, that's what I expect). My bet is that they're doing parlor tricks involving thresholds and silhouettes, while the leap has already demonstrated it can get full 3D point clouds.
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

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@MSat ... how often did that happen in the past?

How often did it happen that fragmenting the market early made it harder to establish the market (VHS, BETA, V2000 ... BluRay/HDDVD ... SDCard, Memory Stick) and many customers had to pay the price (I had a Video 2000 system ... I still have a lot of HDDVDs ...).

I very much doubt any company will want to enter that battlefield ... little to earn since it is a low price product and the 70$ price point is already taken. Others might do the same making it even harder to get a decent roi. Also you need to fight against an established product that was send for free to over 10k developers (or at least people pretending to be ... I still don't understand why they send me one ... I only gave them my blog as reference because I thought I could edit it later).

In an ideal world hardware manufacturers would jump onto the duo - but we live in a world where some deep pocket leapmotion might send you an army of lawyers to eat you alive. I would be more excited if MS or Logitech had made the announcement.

I might be totally wrong here, but I somehow doubt that it will work out to the benefit of the user.
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

Post by MSat »

I retract my earlier statement as there is no indication that the software will be open source, rendering my point moot.
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

Post by cybereality »

@GeraldT: Yeah. I spent thousands on my HDDVD collection (which I ended up selling on ebay for like $200).

I think this project has potential. Yes, it looks exactly like the Leap, but competition is good.

I would certainly back this on Kickstarter.
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

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MSat ... sure there is ;)

"With open hardware plans and software components ..."

"Open Source Components" under Software

@cybereality ... the fate of the early adopter. I had a VHS and DVD collection that was really huge, even my Laserdisc collection was not that small (in Germany Laserdisc was a freak medium). But after the HD-DVD desaster I kind of stopped investing in movies. That was just one time too many ;) ... since then I only bought very, very cheap Blu-rays.

And given this experience do you still think that competition is necessary good? I think my movie collection would be much nicer now had there never been a HDDVD.
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

Post by MSat »

Open source "components"? Sounds like there will be some closed source objects as well. If there are any closed source aspects that require some sort of pay license, hopefully they're just the PS Eye drivers, and not the motion tracking algorithms. I guess we'll see.


As for the HD-DVD thing - the only issue I can see is that you didn't plan on buying a blue-ray player, or you just don't want two different devices on your shelf. Otherwise, who cares if you bought movies for a standard that ended up being axed? It's not like the movies stopped working, or that you can't buy a 2nd hand player in case yours bites the dust.
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

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MSat wrote:If there are any closed source aspects that require some sort of pay license, hopefully they're just the PS Eye drivers, and not the motion tracking algorithms. I guess we'll see.
Actually, this is by the company that created the PS3 Eye drivers, so no worries there.
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

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MSat wrote:Open source "components"? Sounds like there will be some closed source objects as well. If there are any closed source aspects that require some sort of pay license, hopefully they're just the PS Eye drivers, and not the motion tracking algorithms. I guess we'll see.
I hope they do have alternatives to the PlayStation eye - otherwise I say this is doomed already! Sony could change anything anytime. The motivation behind the project is something I am wondering about too - I expected there to be some cam producer behind it. ^^
MSat wrote: As for the HD-DVD thing - the only issue I can see is that you didn't plan on buying a blue-ray player, or you just don't want two different devices on your shelf. Otherwise, who cares if you bought movies for a standard that ended up being axed? It's not like the movies stopped working, or that you can't buy a 2nd hand player in case yours bites the dust.
You have a good point there ... until my player dies and I have a collection of movies I can't get a new player for. ;)
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

Post by cybereality »

I do think getting burned on HDDVD has made me hesitant to invest large amounts of money on my Blu-Ray collection. I mean, I have a few Blu-Ray players now (of course) and maybe a dozen movies or something. Not much of a collection. I did have aspirations of owning every single 3D Blu-Ray movie ever, but it almost seems silly to collect physical discs in 2013. Now everything is about the cloud, digital content, etc. Discs aren't cool anymore.
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

Post by MSat »

zalo wrote:
MSat wrote:If there are any closed source aspects that require some sort of pay license, hopefully they're just the PS Eye drivers, and not the motion tracking algorithms. I guess we'll see.
Actually, this is by the company that created the PS3 Eye drivers, so no worries there.

Right. I don't care if it's only the drivers aren't open source, because building different hardware and drivers is substantially easier than the object tracking implementation IMO - so I think that's the most valuable part to be open sourced.


GeraldT wrote:
You have a good point there ... until my player dies and I have a collection of movies I can't get a new player for. ;)

That's why I said you could buy one second hand if yours poops out. Let me know if you need a spare HD-DVD player, because I have one in my closet :P
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

Post by GeraldT »

Cybereality - having access to many movies via streaming is a very good reason too!
MSat wrote: That's why I said you could buy one second hand if yours poops out. Let me know if you need a spare HD-DVD player, because I have one in my closet :P
yeah ... today, but what is in 2 or 3 years? ;) ... I can still buy a new videorecorder, every bluray player eats DVDs - but my HD-DVD are just waiting to be plastic trash. Laserdiscs at least had cool covers to decorate with :D
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

Post by Machinima »

Its possible i'm missing the point here but why worry about "format wars"? The leap and this thing are just two variations on the same input device right? Like a microsoft mouse and a logitech mouse.... In no way mutually exclusive.
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

Post by GeraldT »

Because as a dev that might mean for me having to learn 2 SDKs.
As a gamer that might mean less software because many devs decided to integrate neither.
Also it means you need to double check if a title supports your device, and not just the other one.

New hardware is hard enough to establish at it is.
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

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GeraldT wrote:from the viewpoint of the consumer this is the same product with another name! this is important if you analyze the chances ...
The consumer will never hear about the DUO, and barely about the Leap unless it's an enormous success among geeks.
GeraldT wrote:The tech is young, give it some time. But I don't really see what the DUO does different (besides being open source). Please tell me, because I do lack motivation to learn what it is all about.
Emphasis mine : that's basically the point.
zalo wrote:My bet is that they're doing parlor tricks involving thresholds and silhouettes, while the leap has already demonstrated it can get full 3D point clouds.
If you read the post and comments of my last link, it seems clear that it's not the case (full 3D point could on the Leap). Also I wouldn't be surprised if the DUO guys were using structure-from-motion algorithms, effectively giving access to a 3D point cloud.
zalo wrote:Leap tried to play it safe by attempting to get their patents in there before anyone else could come close, and now I see why they were/are so paranoid.
Structured-light 3D scanning is nothing new and has been used for more than 10 years. If they're paranoid about patents in this field, I think they should worry a lot more about Microsoft than a bunch of Open Source enthusiasts.
GeraldT wrote:I hope they do have alternatives to the PlayStation eye - otherwise I say this is doomed already! Sony could change anything anytime.
There is nothing better than the PS Eye on the market at this time for such applications (187 fps). I guess their algorithms should work with any other pair of webcams though, but the latency would surely not be very good.
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

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Fredz wrote:The consumer will never hear about the DUO, and barely about the Leap unless it's an enormous success among geeks.
The YouTube video has over 8 Mio views, over 35k likes. They will promote it through BestBuy. They are giving away over 10k units to developers. Their Facebook page is very busy. This has gotten a lot more attention so far than the Oculus - and their last financing round made 30 mio $ available (iirc) ... most of it will be used for marketing obviously.

I don't know, but I have the feeling you are wrong about the last part. ;)

EDIT: and there might be something better than the eye ... the LEAP, it is even faster than that ;)
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

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Heh, not bad, I'm probably wrong about the popularity of the Leap then I guess, but I still stand to what I said for the DUO.

I incidentally had a look at the stats for the Rift on YouTube and I expected something better considering the considerable amount of coverage they got from major medias : 211,285 views and 1,957 likes. :?
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

Post by GeraldT »

Don't worry - that is not bad. It even got more likes/view, meaning it reached the right audience and it is about a year further away from hitting the consumer market I guess.

Why do you think the Oculus VR guys don't want Notch to tweet about it ... they want the PR when it counts. Right now they target the geeks - they need to target the gamers when they have the really cool stuff working with it (and the device closer to release).
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

Post by PalmerTech »

There are a lot more views on our Vimeo page than our Youtube. An insane number of views on our Kickstarter video, too.

Almost none of the press coverage out there is pointing to our Youtube page.
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Re: Introducing the // DUO

Post by GeraldT »

Ahhh .. I was wondering why there was such a big difference between your YouTube views and Facebook likes compared to LEAP. That explains it. Good to know.

Care to share some numbers?
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