vr920, Mac OSX, Unity

[mcsilvio]

Is it possible to bring these together. I am new to Unity on my mac and loving it. Want to get making content with head-tracking, and hopefully stereoscopy.

Is it at all possible to develop for the vr920 on a mac? Using the SDK or something? (haven't looked at the sdk.

Is it possible to get the vr920 connected to unity on the mac?

[Fredz]

As I said in this thread, if you want to create 3D virtual worlds easily with support for stereoscopy (and possibly head-tracking from what I read) you could try Cube 2 which features an in-game map editor :
http://sauerbraten.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mcsilvio]

thanks for the tip. Cube 2 looks good. i dont think it solves my mac osx problem though.

[Johnny-Mnemonic]

Write to Vuzix tech support, I think they will e-mail you OSX SDK if it's not on their site.
Few people on the net developed their applications for VR920 under OSX. I'm not sure that stereo will work, but head-tracking can.
With newer Wrap you can make stereo on any OS, you need to just feed them a stereo pair,
while for VR920 you need to handle software page-flipping with sync signal by yourself.

Regarding Unity - I don't know if there any ready-to-use VR920 plugin, so probably you will need to make your own.
Anyway search this in Unity community too, VR920 is very popular HMD nowadys.

[mcsilvio]

thanks for the reply Johnny. May I ask, can you explain what "feeding a stereo pair" means? Does that mean I need to supply two video signals? May be a problem on my macbook. hmm, maybe with thunderbolt.

i already emailed vuzix. lets see what happens.

thanks again,
marco.

ps. johnny, do you think on my windows machine, that reinstalling a 32 bit version of win7 will clear up the problems im having on my 64 bit windows? (im speaking of my unreal, and hl2 problems discussed in other threads you participated in). cheers,
marco.

[mcsilvio]

fyi johnny,
im desparately trying to get head-tracking and stereoscopy on my macbook pro 13". I think I'm trying to do the impossible because this laptop does not have a dedicated video card. This means that I can not find a way to get two video signals out. save for this solution

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/dh2go/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

which is not really two separate video signals. but it kind of is.

im looking into the cinemizer plus (and oled) now to see if they have better apple support.

these devices are great, but im surprised that vuzix is not backing them up with industry standard software. im sure they are focusing on their more lucrative sectors though.

i hate firing up my old laptop just because it has windows. hmm. maybe i can bootcamp windows on this macbook. also not ideal.

[Johnny-Mnemonic]

Sorry, don't have too much time right now to post you a detailed answer, but here are some tips for you.
I want you to tell not to spent money right now on dual-head-2go, because you don't need one.

1. To get stereoscopic imagery on VR920, Wrap 920 or current Cinemizer, you need only one VGA and only one USB.
2. There is a software support for Vuzix VR920 under Windows, and I run many games on it in WinXP and in Win7 both in 32bit and 64bit versions.
3. To make a head-tracker to work, first you need to calibrate it, then, probably you will need to change a Vuzix's config files a little bit, I will show you how if you will wait for a few days.
4. Stereoscopy for VR920 and Wrap920 working just fine on Intel integrated video, on early GeForce (like 6600, 7800), on new GeForces (9800GT, GT430), and on many ATI Radeons. I personally tested these goggles on such hardware. Of course you can't play Crysis or COD on Intel video, but you can play DirectQuake or Doomsday in stereo 3D.

When I talked about stereo pair video feed, I meant this:



Single 1024x768 image with anamorphic stereo-pair.
Then you can just turn on Side-by-Side stereoscopy in Wrap menu, and you are ready.

With VR920 is another case you need to provide Left and Right images one after another in page flipping fashion and give Left and Right syncro signals to your glasses to put proper image to the right eye. These HMDs have their own video memory for each eye where they copy the video frame, until next frame to come. This explained in SDK.

[mcsilvio]

johnny, thanks so much for all ofyour help and information. ive been googling all day long and trust me, your words are very valuable and original on the subject of vr920's, wraps and stereoscopy.

and youve made me happy. because it seems that the wrap 1200's may give me stereoscopy on my macbook!

thanks again!
marco.

[mcsilvio]

if youre inclined to help me further.

1) how supported is stereo pair video feed? i mean, do i need special drivers to get it done? also, do you know if any 3d modeling or game dev tools (unity, blender) will output stereo pair? basically is it easy to accomplish?

2) using stereo pairs, can i get stereoscopy within a window? or must it be fullscreen?

THANKS!!!
marco.

[cybereality]

If you are on the PC, then you can play games in 3D with the side-by-side format, for example with IZ3D or DDD drivers. So I don't think you will have any luck playing games in 3D on the Mac (not that there are really any games anyhow). For video it will be a little easier. At least if you use YouTube3D in full-screen mode, then it would work with the Vuzix Wrap models (not VR920). To be honest, even on Windows, I had trouble getting VR920 to work with many programs after I upgraded my computer (so I ended up selling it). But I don't understand why you insist on using Macs if you want to do anything involving VR. That's like being a vegetarian and going to dinner in a steak house. Just doesn't make any sense.

[mcsilvio]

good point. the reason is that i dont like having multiple computers (space is limited). SO, i bootcamped my macbook and installed win7 32 bit.

so a fresh install of win7 32 bit, a fresh install of vr manager 3.1, a fresh install of ut2004. and still the headtracking wont work! the hardware shouldnt matter; i thought directx was for abstracting the hardware interaction for developers. i am very confused and disappointed with vrmanager. anyway. ill keep the windows install for vr stuff and unity until a can run stereopairs in osx with the wrap1200.

please have a look at my thread on UT2004 cuz id love to dig deeper into this problem so that I can learn more about the architecture of the vr920 stuff.

thanks guys.
m

[mcsilvio]

ps. both the sales email and tech support email have not written me back. hopefully big things are happening over there and that 1200vr is gonna release soon!

[martinh]

If you are on the PC, then you can play games in 3D with the side-by-side format, for example with IZ3D or DDD drivers. So I don't think you will have any luck playing games in 3D on the Mac (not that there are really any games anyhow). For video it will be a little easier. At least if you use YouTube3D in full-screen mode, then it would work with the Vuzix Wrap models (not VR920). To be honest, even on Windows, I had trouble getting VR920 to work with many programs after I upgraded my computer (so I ended up selling it). But I don't understand why you insist on using Macs if you want to do anything involving VR. That's like being a vegetarian and going to dinner in a steak house. Just doesn't make any sense.

I agree, I much prefer Macs, but I'm resigned to getting a Windows PC for VR, as the hardware and software support simply isn't there. And I've been running on my boot disk for so long boot camp can't partition it. I need multiple serial ports and VGA outs for my rig anyway, so a minitpwer and a slightly polluted feeling it is...

[Fredz]

Hmm, I feel I've already read something about the so-called abysmal support for stereo on Macs, let's try a little Google search...

Autodesk Maya 2011: Graphics Hardware Certification for Stereo Support :

The following table provides the graphics card hardware certifications for stereo support for the Autodesk Maya 2011 for Apple Macintosh software product release :

Code: Select all

GeForce 8800 GT 10.6.2 √ √ √ √
GeForce 7600 GT 10.6.2 √ √ √ √
GeForce 7300 GT 10.6.2 √ √ √ √
GeForce GT 120 10.6.2  √ √ √ √
GeForce GTX 285 10.6.2 √ √ √ √
Radeon HD 3870 10.6.2  √ √ √ √
Radeon X1900 10.6.2    √ √ √ √
Radeon HD 2600 10.6.2  √ √ √ √

Stereoscopic 3D (DLP-Link 120Hz active Shutter Glasses) :

And a DLP Projector does not need 3D Vision at all except for games. (For some unknown reasons on Mac OS X my 8800GTS even supports quad buffer output in the stereoscopic open source video player "Bino").

Stereoscopy: What works, what doesn’t :

We recently purchased two pieces of equipment with a “3D” sticker on them. One was an ACER Aspire 5740D laptop, the other was an Optoma DW318 projector. [...] We also have Apple Macbook Pro notebooks and Linux laptops and virtual machines. During testing, Linux didn’t do much better than Windows. However, OpenGL on the Mac accepted quad-buffer (stereoscopic) mode.

[cybereality]

I wasn't just talking about stereo, I was referring to VR in general. Meaning, headsets, trackers, IO devices, etc. For example, things like the Novint Falcon, 3rd Space Vest, upcoming Razer Hydra, etc. only work on PC AFAIK. Want to watch Blu-Ray 3D? Tough luck, Macs don't even support Blu-Ray AT ALL!!!! And the fact that maybe 5 AAA games have come out for Mac in the past decade, and that there are no 3d drivers, doesn't help the situation so much. It would be great if Windows didn't have such a monopoly on the market, and if manufacturers actually released (and maintained) Mac/Linux drivers, but that just isn't the reality of the situation. Best tool for the job, and right now those tools work on Windows.

[Fredz]

Yes the situation is not that good on Mac OS X because of the lack of gaming titles, but the OP only wanted to create his own virtual worlds, so I guess it's not a problem there.

For stereoscopic support it seems to be as good as it can, native quad buffer stereo support is definetely the best way to implement stereo on any OS, so for this part it's all good. For head-tracking support, reading the Vuzix site shows that the SDK for the VR920 supports head tracking on Mac OS X, so this aspect is also taken care of.

And for general 3D development or in-game modelling, both Unity and Cube 2 do work on Mac OS X, so I think all the defined needs are covered.

[mcsilvio]

thanks for all the good info guys. im a little unclear on native stereo. to achieve stereo pairs, do i need special drivers? is that something i can set up without drivers? is that application specific?

i know vr920 doesnt use stereo pairs, but im trying to learn for when this 1200vr comes out.

[cybereality]

The 1200VR uses side-by-side frame-compatible mode, which basically takes 2 views (left/right) and squishes them together to fit on one screen. There is not special driver or API needed to do this. Even a JPEG image can use this format, and display properly on the 1200VR (or other Wrap models that support this). I think to do this in a 3D engine you would render each eye to a different frame buffer, and then have a pixel shader which would combine them and blit that to the screen. At least thats how I think it works, never tried it myself.