For me it is uncomfortable to use an HMD as a desktop because even at low FOV's it is unnatural to use my eyes instead of my head to view the edges of the screen. Using my eye muscles that much is very tiring after a short while. Maybe you can build up muscle endurance over time and get used to it, but I constantly find myself turning my head to try and focus on different parts of the screen.Aphradonis wrote:Brant, I'd like to have an HMD as a desktop monitor replacement. 720p is okay for gaming, but unacceptable for desktop usage. I actually want to buy three of these and mod them together for a 5760x1080 3DVS HMD. And although 720p is okay for gaming, 1080p is better. Pixels are easily discernible ingame with 720p.
It seems like the best way to present a desktop with an HMD is as a projection onto a rectangle in virtual space. That way you can use your head motion just as you normally would to focus on details and avoid the unnatural eye movement. This would also reduce the amount of resolution you need to represent detail because just like in the real-world you can just move your head closer to the region of interest. Your "virtual" screen can be as high a resolution as your graphics memory can handle - but projected and down-sampled onto your low resolution HMD screens. If you need to resolve tiny objects on screen you can just tilt your head and move in a couple inches closer and achieve a 1:1 or better resolution between your HMD screens and the virtual pixels within the view frustum.
Seems like a no-brainer. Is there any software currently out there that can do this type of desktop projection? If not, maybe I'll put it on my ridiculously long TODO list.
Edit: Another way to describe this is that people need high resolutions and multiple monitors so that every piece of the physical screen can be examined closely (using mainly head motions) - but you rarely "take in" all of that resolution as a whole. I have two large high resolution monitors sitting in front of me now, but you know what? I am sitting forward in my chair and focusing at a relatively small region of just one of them while I type. All the rest of the resolution to the sides is wasted at this moment. An HMD (with headtracker) can use the same mechanics but more efficiently because it only has to render what you are looking at. It doesn't have to waste resolution in your peripheral like your monitors do.