I would argue that working in VR is fundamentally superior to working in PCs/laptops. It's basically 10x the screens, focus, and work immersion. Simula's text quality is also very good (getting around the eye fatigue present in older VR Desktops).
On a second thought: if you would make it easier to "fix" window, such that one can focus on it and work. As when you are "placing" a new window in your video, that could make it a workable solution.
I think the wiggling is actually kind of natural -- you don't notice your head or eye movements when you do them automatically, but it might be exacerbated in VR.
The fixing is an interesting idea, we'll try it out. I'm a bit worried it might feel weird in VR.
Corollary discharge[1] causes the brain to “subtract” out the motion of the image on the retina. It happens when our nervous system instructs the eyes to look in another direction. You can have someone else move your eyes or even do it yourself by pressing gently on the side of the eyeball with a fingertip on top of the lid. Wiggling one eye this way is not supported by the hardware of the eye and produces a very noticeable wiggly view of the real world.
I mentioned subtracting out the motion going on in the visual system. Experiments suggest that something like this is happening. If a muscle paralyzing drug is injected into the eye’s muscles it causes a wiggly world because the intent to glance somewhere causes both an ineffective command to move the eye, producing no real movement of the image in the retina while the triggered corollary discharge subtracts the intended motion from the still image and causes a perceived motion (in the opposite direction).
I think navigation needs eye tracking, which sadly no headset currently supports. Focus-follows-gaze would be a game changer.
Right now, Simula uses "dumb" eye tracking, in the sense that windows receive keyboard and cursor focus when the user's forward eye gaze intersects a window. We also have it so that users can control the cursor focus with their forward gaze (presently binded to `Super + Apostrophe`); similarly, users can drag windows around by holding `Super + Alt` and looking around. The experience adds up to something quite productive once you learn all the keyboard shortcuts (your fingers don't need to leave the keyboard).
But I agree that wiggling is off putting. I think VR demos should low-pass filter the output to some degree to give a more realistic perception of what VR is like.
But I feel its mostly rotational motion that is perceptible in VR demos rather than translational motion. I suspect that's because a small rotational motion results in a large shift in perspective for objects in the world that are some distance away from the camera while small translational movements don't really result in a significant perspective shift.
Would be interested in seeing what research into human head motion while sitting/standing/walking/etc. shows though.
Yeah, both rotation and translation would be filtered in the idea I had, so that small wiggling motions aren't as visible.
You can have just one window at a time, and with a good headset, the wiggle is not significant. You can even adjust it so that your workspace follows you when your head turns.
https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula/blob/gdwlroots-xwayland/d... https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula/blob/gdwlroots-xwayland/d...
I haven't used Windows' Virtual Desktop since the early days, but I suspect our text enhancements have improved upon the situation dramatically (when keeping hardware constant).
Have you actually tried VR? The fact that you think there's wiggling makes me think you haven't. Yes, videos make it look that way but I can guarantee you that's not reflected in the actual experience. VR is notoriously bad to watch on video and doesn't capture the experience at all.
As for pinned windows: fixed HUD is a no-no in VR games because it burns in same spot of your eyesight. When a HUD is desired, players are usually given a virtual or symbolic helmet that allow display to lag behind head movement.
The webcam view is also interesting; if it were "inverted" so that, instead of being confined to a window, it was outside of all windows (that is, the background "wallpaper"), it would work even better as a laptop replacement (that is, the screen doesn't cover your whole view, allowing you to keep aware of your surroundings).
The AR idea is really interesting. We'll try replacing the background with "reality" as seen from the HMD cameras.
So that's the future, maybe: cubicle dwellers get their own VR offices...
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But after watching your video, I feel like this really needs some tiling window manager (i3 etc) inspired way of easily creating workspaces with tiles, and effortlessly navigating between them. With relatively minimal head movement.
Also, does Simula support curved displays? It would seem very natural to arrange different curved screens around you instead of flat ones, which also potentially waste quite a bit of useful space.
I'll put curved windows onto our todo list. Not sure if they're a good idea for all applications but at least some would benefit.
I won't get to try out Simula until Sunday, but based on the video, my intuition says the apps being curved would look more natural / immersive.
So being able to fetch up windows so it's perfectly centered above the keyboard would make it easier for me to use.
For VR gaming (Oculus Rift), I start to experience mild discomfort after about 30min, which grows severe by 60min. It's hard to envision using VR for a full work day. (My eyes are fairly light-sensitive from laser-eye surgery; not sure how much is saccading, vs. bright light directly in front of the eyes.)
https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula/blob/gdwlroots-xwayland/d... https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula/blob/gdwlroots-xwayland/d...
Many early VR Desktops (and VR games) didn't go to special effort to optimize text quality, and I think this has given people a lower than warranted impression of what is possible in VR today. There's no doubt that VR hardware is going to get exponentially lighter/sharper over time, and that these improvements will be welcome, but things are good enough now to put in 1hr+ long sessions without eye strain (at least in my experience as a daily user).
I think the Index might be OK but I couldn't comment.
I never would have even purchased a VR headset had it not been for the promise to start working on a productivity environment. But before we can start building the killer VR office apps, we have to get the basic 2D apps working crisply/perfectly, IMO.
In 2017, I had a conversation with a co-worker, where we talked about how badly we wanted a VR desktop environment with infinite screen-space. There's VRDesktop, but that isn't this. And then again the same conversation last year with another friend.
After seeing the demo video, I was compelled to go look at Vive prices (~$1,000, ouch).
I feel like my productivity would skyrocket with this, mostly due to lack of background distractions. Imagine wearing noise-cancelling headphones. I want this so bad.
I feel we are just scratching the surface of what's possible. Yes, multiple (arbitrarily sized) windows are neat. But we can probably do more.
Even without any changes though, I just wish my VR headset was lighter. I can go more than 8h straight in VR... playing games. Not sure about working.
Will try this :)
SteamVR does this, but I've found it less useful than movable/resizable windows.
> I feel we are just scratching the surface of what's possible.
Definitely. This is one of the first viable iterations, but there's lots and lots of improvement potential everywhere.
> Even without any changes though, I just wish my VR headset was lighter.
Yeah, agreed. But I think future hardware will improve on that.
Would allow you to spin the windows around without having to spin yourself, for prolonged periods of "switching over to the right" for instance.
Could use a different gesture to move around the 3D space too allowing you to navigate to different pockets of work
Have you thought about an Android/Quest version?
I'll take a look at Quest docs and see if it's doable, but I don't have high hopes for it.
Having said that, getting even a standard desktop setup on Android to work well is iffy so doing it in VR does seem like a pretty immense challenge. But it would be a breakthrough in what it could demonstrate in terms of the concept.
Now you need something like a knob or dial to rotate the background, so you don't need to move your chair or turn 360.
Holy crap, I never thought of it that way!
Anyone know if this is possible with macOS?
It can create extra displays, but you have to buy an Elite license for that.
Where does Haskell fit in with Godot and Simula?