Review of the Wide5

[Fredz]

Still no information about the size of the displays used in this HMD ?

[PalmerTech]

The US Army's Rock Island Arsenal spent $32,500 on a Fakespace Wide5 in 2007.

The Wide5 uses two 60Hz, 1600x1200 pixel displays combined with a 6-DOF Intersense IS-900 head-tracker and their optics provide a field of view 150°×88°. The optical axes appear to diverge by 25° to gain extra peripheral vision in the same manner as LEEP Systems' Cyberface2.

The SBIR also publishes details about more of Fakespace Labs' awards to give you an idea where Wide5's might be used.

Good links! The Wide5 does not use any tracker by default, though, the Intersense was just used in that particular application. The LCDs are not 1600x1200, either, they are much lower resolution. 1600x1200 is the total resolution of the video input, which consists of four cameras; Two forward views, and two off axis peripheral views that are merged with the forward views.

@ProfVR: The Wide5 does have a crazy powerful backlight, it helps combat the severe light loss caused by the lens design. The contrast suffers as a result, and there is some bleeding, but it has an interesting side effect: Dark scenes are washed out, low contrast, and bright looking, but outdoor scenes are much better, as you describe. I have an HMD I built with 120 FOV that used dual 500 lumen projectors, the brightness is astounding! A big advance in HMDs someday will be the ability to simulate real life lighting conditions, such as forcing you to squint when moving into an outdoor area filled with sunlight.

[bobv5]

A possibility then is to add a super bright backlight to not Wide5 HMD's. A switch could be fitted to have super bright for mostly outdoor games, and normal for indoor games. With ambilight type software the switch could possibly be automated.

[profvr]

A possibility then is to add a super bright backlight to not Wide5 HMD's. A switch could be fitted to have super bright for mostly outdoor games, and normal for indoor games. With ambilight type software the switch could possibly be automated.

Better still: make an active backlight so that the display can be full HDR. This has been done for large flat panels, it would be great if someone could do it for a small panel. E.G. the Brightside displays are really fantastic (if you can find someone who has one they aren't made any more): http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2005/1 ... _hdr_edr/1. I've seen these in action a few times, and you see "light bloom" as an actual visual effect rather than as a rendering "hack". The only company making HDR displays at the moment (I think) is Sim2 http://www.sim2.com/HDR/hdrdisplay/hdr47e_s_4k, though I've not seen one of their displays in action.

[brantlew]

@profvr: very cool technology

[bobv5]

Yup, no doubt that would be better, but my way could maybe be added as a hack without too much difficulty.

[mwarren]

…The Wide5 uses two 60Hz, 1600x1200 pixel displays combined with a 6-DOF Intersense IS-900 head-tracker and their optics provide a field of view 150°×88°. The optical axes appear to diverge by 25° to gain extra peripheral vision in the same manner as LEEP Systems' Cyberface2.

… The LCDs are not 1600x1200, either, they are much lower resolution. 1600x1200 is the total resolution of the video input, which consists of four cameras; Two forward views, and two off axis peripheral views that are merged with the forward views. …

Ah, OK. The Wide5 input is a 1600x1200 signal, but the LCD displays are natively more like 1024x768 (and maybe originally were 800x600, based on this Vizard forum help request). The frames of the 1600x1200 input signal consist of four 800x600 renders/views something like:

• upper left 800x600 is a narrow angle (~90°) left view
• upper right 800x600 is a narrow angle (~90°) right view
• lower left 800x600 is a wide angle (~155° wide, ~130° high) off-axis left view
• lower right 800x600 is a wide angle (~155° wide, ~130° high) off-axis right view

The hardware then resamples the input images to match the lens distortion and outputs 1024x768 images for the left and right screens. The resampling can use the narrow, forward views for the central areas where the optics magnify the least and the wide, off-axis views for the higher magnification periphery. Nice!

It's almost like using two SBS views, a narrow 90° and a wide 155°, then blending in the best pixels to match the HMD optics.

(Edit: Updated with vertical coverage from Palmer's first post)