My idea for a HMD like the Oculus DK2

[JDuncan]

First off let me say that I don't own any VR type helmet yet, but I have been avidly reading up on the technology used in it and think I can make some assumptions on what would make a nice VR helmet based solely on being a avid reader enthusiast for VR helmets like the OCULUS VR.

So here goes nothing.

I read that having the immersion is based on the field of view being 120 degrees. And in this type of setup having cinematic visuals makes people queasy. That's not worth it imh, to have a VR helmet that you can't watch your favorite action movie in or jumpy fast visuals. So there is a compromise necessary to get the fast cinematic and have the largest field of view.

I find that having a field of view of 52 degrees approximately is what lets me watch action filled cinematic visuals that jump the camera quickly from scene to scene.

Now with that said you have the screen door effect in regular oculus dk2 helmets resolved, by having the screen pulled further away from the eyes so you get the 52 degree field of view you also lose the screen door effect and now everything looks crystal clear resolution wise.

So you have the oculus dk2 helmet in my idea, but the screen has only 52 degrees of view that means the screen s further from the eyes than it is ow in the oculus dk2 helmet, and this then resolves the screen door effect but it compromises the immersion effect.

By having less field of view you lose total immersion but gain not ever being nauseous and having any type of video jumpy or not being shown with no headache or sick feeling.
This would be essential for games like call or duty that have notorious shaky cameras.

Now the head tracking and hand tracking, you have a black room that the person in VR is in. And you can see the persons moving head and hands by the light they cast onto a Japanese paper wall.
Not a real Japanese paper wall, but it is semi translucent so that it can catch light from the person on the inside so you see the light on the wall.

This would look like an Indian sweat lodge, that has part of the dome be paper that you can see the lights on the person moving behind the paper.
The dome is like an igloo that is what makes the room dark.

Now on the persons head is a laser, like a pen laser, and it shines onto the paper wall. Then a camera on the other side of the paper wall in the regular room, not necessarily dark room, looks at the wall and then matches the laser light to the person head movement.
This gives instantaneous head tracking.

The gloves on the persons hands glow like the movie "tron legacy" clothes. They may also have a thermal property, that a thermal camera and regular camera can see the light from the hands move.
There is a reset position the person holds their hands in that is where the hands in VR start to move from so the camera sees the hands move from the starting position and then the person sees their hands move in VR.
Then if there is drift they just move their hands to the reset position.

Now for control you have the PlayStation move wand. The controls work like this;
"In playstation 3 the game Socom confrontation, the right stick controls where you look, and the left stick controls movement forward backwards side to side.

If you point the soldier to look somewhere then the left stick presses up meaning forward, the soldier moves forward to where he is facing which is where the right stick is pointing or has just pointed to."

So the headset is the one stick and the PlayStation wand thumb stick is the other stick.
The headset is the looking stick, the Wand is the moving stick.

Now to get the PlayStation controller so you have L1 and L2 buttons, you include another Move wand, but the new Move wand stick doesn't move where you look the headset does that.

And that is my idea for a VR headset, control, and tracking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ5wTHM1zkw

[JDuncan]

I noticed something today when I watched a video on my two monitors as the video was cloned on both monitors, a 3D effect.

The video was played on my computer screen and the desktop was cloned so I could see the desktop screen on both monitors at the same time.

The monitors are different sizes and are stacked vertically with a gap of about a foot between the top of the bottom TV and the bottom of the top TV, the two TV's center is the same though.

The bottom TV is smaller than the top TV by about 20 inches, the top TV is 16:9 aspect ratio and 43", and the bottom TV is 16:9 aspect ratio and is 24".

If you took the top TV and made a duplicate sized TV and put it flush vertically stacked against the bottom of the top TV, then if the small 24" TV was put against the bottom 43" TV it would sit on the bottom of the 43" TV and there would be a gap on the top and sides of the smaller TV and the larger TV.

Like this;


I viewed the 43" TV at about 8 feet 5 inches which makes the viewing angle 20.8 degrees viewing angle, and the 24" TV would be about 11.7 degrees viewing angle.

What I saw was the feeling of different parallax and so I felt a 3D quality to the video, it was a cgi movie "Beyond the Minds eye";
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKJzZQ9Ln-Y

When I saw the top image I could also see the bottom image and the two TV's showed the same image at different sizes and so when I saw one TV show the image the other TV showed the same image but at a different size just like 3D parallax does.

It works for either TV you watch.

I think that having this in a VR headset so each eye has two monitors so you have 4 monitors total, and the one eye has the larger monitor on top and the smaller monitor on the bottom like the picture I showed.

This would mean pulling the top 16:9 aspect ratio away to be a smaller fov to let the bottom TV also be seen in the fov.
This would mean no sde and a new way to get 3D immersion that is novel/modern.
Add in left eye image, right eye image, and the 3D effect would be amplified a lot giving a instant Wow factor to the 3D effect.

The result of making a smaller fov also stops the nausea effect VR gives a lot or totally. See my nausea thread to see why I think this.

Now add in the ability to delegate the top or bottom monitors to see other things than VR like a desktop or some other video or maybe a hud of whats happening outside and you have a winner.

I don't know the perfect fov to have the top and bottom monitors in a VR headset though, because I can't build it myself and look around in it functionally, the lcd's and whole designing a VR headset is beyond me right now.

[JDuncan]

Take a look at this picture to see the video stacked vertically; Click the picture to resize it.


The pictures of the video showing their actual size, the top picture;


The bottom picture;


And here is the idea, to have a set of these stacked displays in a virtual reality headset like the oculus rift, but that has the field of view less than 120 degrees and less than 85 degrees to fit the two monitors I showed in the pictures into the eyes field of view.

This would let you have a Google glass type headset where the top monitors are the outside and the bottom are the computer screen. It can give you a ehind the head view if it's linked to a camera facing the back of you. It can split the top and bottom monitors to let you see in VR for either the top or bottom level and the other level lets you see outside in the real world to see if there's something you should see walking around you.

And when the two monitors aspect ratios are matched to increase the 3D effect the bottom screen gives, the view looks 3D more than not when I watch a 2D video. It has to do with the feeling of extra movement the smaller screen gives. It's a illusion the smaller screen is showing a different picture but it looks different and that gives the 3D effect because it's the same 2D picture but the movement looks different so this is like parallax depth.

It's more pronounced when you look at the bottom video than the top but the top looks better.

The monitors would see in virtual reality and show the same picture on the top and bottom screen, the left eyes top and bottom screen would be the same for the left eye but different than the right eyes screen because of the distance between the eyes looking at the same object.

This is the final result, but you have to see only two vertically stacked monitors per eye, not 4 monitors per eye.


Because this lets you see in the real world it can be like Google glass where people walk around in the real world wearing it and seeing the world around them via cameras.
Then there can be three monitors showing the real world, the vertically stacked monitors aren't cloned anymore if they are showing the real world, and the one monitors on the bottom shows the computer screen.
This can be good for security guards to see behind them or get a infrared type sensor on one of the monitors to see the heat of things not clearly visible to the human eye.

[JDuncan]

The smaller window is sized and positioned so the two windows look like they are showing slightly different pictures which is also when they are showing the same picture so this translates to looking like it is 3D parallax depth.