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mlajtos.mu

33 pointsmlajtos96 comments

> Better Way to See Pixels

I'm not sure if the poster has actually used VR. Pixel density is still substandard, for two reasons:

* It's easy to forget that you have to drive two displays. Double the resolution, half the framerate, double the nausea. If you choose lower pixel density, then your users will enjoy pixel grid. Keep in mind that the pixel grid was a big issue for the Vive (the last HMD that I owned), at 2K per-eye.

* Manufacturing processes: we have to be able to make smaller pixels in the first place.

We need way more graphical power in more efficient cores. Apple will need to seriously push the GPU envelope on their next chip if this is to become a reality.

With eye tracking you could potentially only perform a high definition render to where you are looking. This is perfect for small text and necessary if you want to reach very high frame rates.

Yes, this technique is called foveated rendering. You can further speed up ray tracing by reducing noise in renders that are produced by tracing a low number of rays per pixel. Another technique is realtime super sampling via machine learning.

To be fair, the Vive was six years ago. Wow, that feels sad to say.

Vive: 1080×1200 per eye

Index: 1440×1600 per eye

Quest 2: 1832 x 1920 per eye (pushing 120hz at native resolution on a phone without it hitting thermal limits)

Focus 3: 2448 × 2448 per eye

Pimax 8k X: 3840 x 2160 per eye, but with a wider FOV

Pixel resolution of HMD without stating FOV is useless. Much better unit of comparison is pixels per 1 degree (PPD).

Original HTC Vive (2016), which was basically the first gen VR product, was 9.81 PPD, current Vive 2 Pro (2021) is 20.4 PPD. Oculus Quest 2 (2020) is 20.58 and currently the best is Varjo VR-3 (2021) with 70 PPD for central display and 30 PPD for peripheral display. Pimax 8K is 22.58 PPD.

I know, and I was thinking about being more explicit, but Zamalek's comment was on resolution per-eye, so to keep it clear I decided to use resolution, too. Thank you for expanding on the comment!

The Varjo VR-3 is a variable rate display but the zones are fixed, correct? So the locus of fidelity is always in the same spot relative to your eyes? I'm wondering whether VR display technology would benefit from the scan flexibility that some modern image sensors have. E.g. imagine a 12K display where you can select on a frame-by-frame basis which area you want to scan at full resolution, which at half, quarter, ... etc. -- be quick enough about it, and it'll always look like a 12K display but with a fraction of the bandwidth and compute cost.

Yes, the high resolution display is always fixed in the center, it doesn't move according to your gaze. I can't really comment on the other thing you are proposing...

> It's easy to forget that you have to drive two displays. Double the resolution, half the framerate, double the nausea

nVidia had rendering pipeline optimizations for multi-view VR for years: https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/turing-multi-view-renderin...

It's safe to assume that a future VR-focused product from Apple will support similar features

The hardware required for an acceptable VR experience seems to be finally within our grasp.

I have been dreaming closing the human computer interface for decades. The possibilities for productivity and creativity are endless. Imagine sculpting a 3D model with you hands. Or being able to make music, not with virtual instruments but by manipulating waveforms of various audio streams with your with fingertips and feeling the sound while you sculpt it.

Yet I have not seen even a tech demo for such things in VR, all innovation seems aimed consuming content, because that is where the easy money is.

But I am still typing on a digital keyboard that cannot even sense how hard I am pressing the keys. What Apple did with the iPad pro and pencil for digital illustration is one example of what can be done. I hope Apple will once again innovate for creative professionals.

The article contains a video of Steve Jobs talking about VR. I feel like Steve could push for something revolutionary for creative professionals, while Time Cook might give us something slightly better than that we had before.

There is vr support in the unreal editor:https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/BuildingWorlds/VRMo...

And now think of young people entirely raised with access to this kind of virtual work space when it matures a few decades into the future. We will all look just as dumb and unproductive to them, as 1950’s mad men guys in offices with armies of copywriters do to us today.

I hope so.

Pencil is from Cook-era Apple. Watch has a right direction now (health & fitness which goes hand-in-hand with VR), but ultimately it is just an accessory. As Pencil is. However, they have guts to call iPad Pro a computer (as in Mac sense), so I hope this framing will translate to HMD as well, but from the beginning.

Blender 3.1 (2022-03-09) will have Metal support for rendering. Unity has already a native Apple Silicon build and Unity Hub is starting to feel like a Mac app. I think both will be demoed at the announcement. I think the support for the creative apps will be good at the launch and will get better over time.

Creating new interaction paradigms is a hard problem and it takes time. When a lot of people will have access to the hardware and developer tools, these experiments will be abundant and something will emerge. I highly recommend Daniel Beauchamp as a great example for out-of-the-box interactions in VR: https://twitter.com/pushmatrix

I certainly hope this dystopia will never happen, and VR will still be a fringe niche.

As long as it requires strapping a headset to your face which blocks all vision of the real world, I agree with this sentiment. I want a full on holodeck level set up for VR.

However, I'm much more willing to accept a set of "glasses" that provides for a useable AR experience. The catch here would be that we can have the lenses still be prescribed corrective lenses. Build a frame that modern lens makers can make lenses for, yet still keep all the electronic wizardry.

The system described in the article uses cameras to provide an in-headset view of the real world. I’ve no idea if that’s good enough relative to transparent goggles though.

I understand, just stating what/where/why my limitations exist. It still a thing strapped to my face. That's the main non-starter for anything more than novel use (sub-15 minutes).

Also, knowing lensing, I'd be very suspect if these provide the peripheral vision correctly. Or could display the peripheral correctly.

I hope not, too, and I really don't understand the desire to wear a HMD all day. Are these folks' lives so empty that this is better than just, like...being present? I can lean a little to the right and see my dog from where I sit to work and there are windows with good natural light all over the place. Why would I want to shut everything out? Work isn't life.

What is to say you can't have both? Cameras and overlaying the display with the real world is already being done. Simply throwing up a work env as a HUD around the real world isn't at all beyond the reach of cures t tech.

So you can see your dog and natural light, and have everything overplayed by an HMD as AR around you.

You can scan your pets in Meta. They can then travel the Metaverse with you. Once the AI training completes, your pet's personality will be synced to the cloud. Your dog will now be with you forever so you can happily put the meatspace version to sleep.

> Your dog will now be with you forever so you can happily put the meatspace version to sleep.

Remember this phrase.

> I hope not, too, and I really don't understand the desire to wear a HMD all day.

Not everyone is privileged enough to live in an environment perfectly suitable for work or living their life. A virtual world creates space that doesn't actually exist but is still quite useful for the person working inside of it. I don't own a movie theater but I could potentially enjoy the experience of one with VR. It would also enable me to arbitrarily define my workspace in such a way that is not even physically possible in the real world.

For example, I have large studio monitors that physically require there to not be obstructions in front of them, which creates constraints on the size and placement of my display(s). In a virtual world that sort of limitation doesn't exist. I could still sit at my same desk with the same studio monitors but with a limitless space for the displays that could be placed exactly where they're most useful, without concerns for obstructing the studio monitors.

> Are these folks' lives so empty that this is better than just, like...being present?

Why would you infer that people's lives are 'so empty' just because they find using VR appealing? Even if someone wanted to spend 100% of their time in the 'virtual world,' what exactly about that makes their life empty?

> Not everyone is privileged enough to live in an environment perfectly suitable for work or living their life.

Two issues with that:

1. A good VR setup requires more space than a good home office. I've got a perfectly workable home office that is also my VR space, but is at the bare minimum of what SteamVR will allow room scale usage in, and does lead to bumping into things.

2. Longer term VR use is actively tiring. I mean obviously beat saber and active use is, but even two hours flight simming which is sitting in a chair does this in a way it isn't using my monitor. Maybe lighter or dimmer future headsets will help with this, but that's a big assumption.

Count yourself lucky that you have such a blessed life that you don’t want to escape from.

Sure, I'm lucky. I'm also of the opinion that we can work to give that to everybody rather than attempting to apply VR as opiate.

For example, we don't want the physical world depicted in Ready Player One (the book).

We still haven't even solved the problem of VR making a large subset of the population dizzy. I tell you this as a VR owner: even if you don't get dizzy, it's something that contributes to enough fatigue and eyestrain where there is no way to use it beyond relatively short periods. Maybe AR is better in that regard.

Sure, VR is already solving very specific and niche business problems. Using AR on a factory floor (e.g., Google Glass) seems like a great application. Maybe very soon VR conferencing will be a smooth experience.

The biggest problem with these technologies is that they take up so much of your viewing area. With traditional VR you can't see the outside world at all. Whatever AR solution comes out will have to find a way to be both useful but unintrusive to your peripheral awareness.

The second biggest problem with VR/AR hype is that it's a solution looking for a problem. There isn't really anything we can't do on a laptop that VR/AR tech enables for non-gaming software. Everyone's been predicting the demise of the PC for decades now and it never quite happens, because that method of computing is so versatile.

What does VR provide for a business that it can't get in a Zoom call with a webcam? What will I be able to do in VR that I can't do via a simple screen share?

I just can't really imagine it supplanting even 5% of what we do on our phones and laptops. VR/AR will hit a plateau for the similar reasons that smartwatches haven't replaced our smartphones.

I love my VR system for what it is – a fun way to play video games. This article even seems to focus on the video game aspect, but it's predicting total takeover of the computing space by virtual reality. Put me in the camp of "skeptical."

> What does VR provide for a business that it can't get in a Zoom call with a webcam?

Well, if they did it properly, it'd be like real life except without the commute.

They won't, though, because nerds will say "oh, I'd rather be completely isolated and only interact with others on my specific and limited terms".

So we'll just end up with janky 3D zoom calls in isolated rooms or something, as you say.

Technology is never the issue, it's politics.

You can absolutely use VR for more than short periods quite comfortably without getting fatigue and eyestrain, assuming you're not running at a low FPS and your tracking is accurate.

I often use it for programming, and I'm able to stay quite comfortable for around twelve hours at a stretch multiple times a week.

I also play some reasonably competitive, fast-paced games, and there's no discomfort from playing those at long intervals, either.

What HW and SW are you using? I am guessing Virtual Desktop.

Nope, I'm not a Windows user, so VD has never worked for any platform I use.

No, I don't.

I want to run in the forest, stand outside in the rain, enjoy a pint with a friend after handing over a crisp fiver. I want to chop firewood and build a cabinet. I want to feel the cold Siberian breeze, and thank the postman with a bottle of wine. Drive my old, rusty, loud car through busy city traffic, and fuck my partner over the kitchen worktop.

The only real use I can see for VR that would actually appeal is in disability adjustment. Everything mentioned in the article sounds like a junkie's version of the real thing.

I don't know why but I was picturing you in all those scenarios with a pair of sun glasses because you sounds like badass.

Life is badass if you make it! :-)

>Yes, this post will be about Virtual Reality, which will change the whole computing world. Wanna know how?

Not really. It's just another hype, out of dozens peddled over the years... It's not gonna "change the whole computing world" anytime soon, any more than "voice interfaces" did (a previous hype).

I have no idea if VR is really going to change the computing world, but it definitely is an area of technology that, once the challenges are solved has a lot of potential to change how we interact with machines. A lot of those challenges are now on the brink of being consumer tech (high res 6 dof sensors, high framerate densely pixeled displays, spacial tracking of objects, etc). It's possible that the time for VR is now.

We are primarily visual creatures – awful lot of our brain processing power is to do inverse graphics, i.e. looking and understanding what you see. Head mounted display is just another way to display stuff. We will still have recognizable GUI elements because we understand this metaphor. What UI is the best for VR is still an open design problem. Voice and body gestures are going to be important, but all those interactions has to be discovered.

>Head mounted display is just another way to display stuff

My sentiments exactly. And not the more convenient or information dense.

> > Head mounted display is just another way to display stuff

> And not the more convenient or information dense.

Compared to what?

Pretty much everything else, but the baseline is what we currently use: computers and smartphones and tablets with windows/cli interfaces.

Smartphones, tablets and other current displays can deliver only 2.5D planar image. AR/VR display can deliver immersive 3D environments which is superset of former. You can be "in the Doom world" instead of "looking at Doom game". Since we, as computer-bearing monkeys, have pretty good sense of space, it plays well with our brain. By including spatial information, it is by definition more "information dense".

Of course, replacing real monitors with virtual ones is the lazy approach of bringing productivity to VR, but it is important first step. It is familiar and you won't get something less than you already have. This is the part where Apple plays an important part – they know how to co-design hardware and software. Hardware form factor of "Your Next Mac" is basically known, but the software is going to be a surprise. And there might/should be the improved convenience.

My Mac is provided by my work. I work in finance doing infrastructure for retail banking. Tell me again how VR is going to help me for deploying networks and clusters and turning off my camera in video calls whilst I go on Reddit

Well, we don’t know, yet.

You could easily turn the clock 30 years back and ask the same question with smartphones/computers.

When a truly profound device hits the market we’ll see a very creative race to come up with all the different uses for it imho.

I'm pretty sure that computers were around 30 years ago, including in banking. While smartphones are a newer development and I do use mine all the time, I can't say that it has any serious impact on my work that would not be achieved with my laptop and a dumb phone.

I think you need to look at the phrase 'truly profound' that you're using and consider what that actually means in context: the world wide Web has had a truly profound impact on human development contrasted to promote media. Colour TV, for example, hasn't (given radio, cinema, black and white TV already existing)

'Truly profound' comes from 'seeing software on tiny rectangle' vs. 'being in the software'. The full immersion is the true innovation here.

Well, my point more so revolves around the currently uninvented and the unimaginable uses that developers have yet to deliver on that “profound” device after it arrives, becomes prevalent, the details are figured out etc.

That’s what made smartphones exciting for a couple years, right? Not only were we buying devices that were doing the things that we expected them to, but new uses and applications for them were being delivered regularly.

When we imagine the new paradigm we’re usually constrained by the current one.

How many monitors do you use?

2 normally

> I work in finance doing infrastructure for retail banking. I am using two monitors. Tell me how VR is going to help me for deploying networks and clusters...

I imagine DevOps as really close to mode of operation to programming – you google stuff, write things in text files, have terminals open, etc. This type of work trades short-term memory for screen real estate – you need to see a lot of stuff at the same time (everything is one saccade away). That's why you have two monitors. One head-mounted display can simulate any number of monitors, while your desk is free to be used for physical stuff that matter. You can pack these monitors into your bag for work-from-home scenario and you don't have to do any additional setup – everything is right where you left it.

> 'I imagine'...

Yeah, you missed the part where I'm zoning out on reddit and checking my phone during the boring bits of video calls, didn't you? The real world isn't imaginary and I don't want my entire reality susbsumed in my employer's walled garden. Also f*k packing everything in a bag. I work from home 99% of the time. The other 1% external monitors are provided but I'm not doing any proper workstation-based work.

Reddit is just another window alongside your work and you'll still be able to see your phone – the virtual monitors are fixed in real world coordinates, so nothing is obstructing your view when you look away.

I personally I hope my net Mac won't be VR related. I have tried it recently but I think the quality is not there and I felt sick after using it. Does anyone else get headaches from using VR glasses?

What devices have you tried?

Apple has a good track record for making their devices accessible for a lot of people.

I get a bad headache from VR, but no motion sickness. So it isn’t just you.

Technology is not there yet, far from it, and not just from the hardware side. And it may have some appeal for some tasks for i.e. artists and designers, but they are not the only ones that use computers, nor those are the only uses for computers.

Making sense of data and being able to turn into something meaningful for a VR display would need an army of people using normal computers, or AGIs, in the cases where that could be done, that may not be the most common case.

> far from it

I strongly suspect that the majority of the kinks will be ironed out before the end of this decade.

Within the next 5 years the screen quality will be dramatically improved and will become a viable alternative to our monitors and laptop screens.

It's always 'about 5-10 years away' isn't it?...

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/0...

No. I'm not going to put one of those on my fucking head just to use a computer. I'm NOT. I already dislike wearing glasses (and contacts, etc).

To think people are going to do this in mass, it's just stupid thinking.

Edit: Okay drive-by downvoter(s), I get it, The above didn't "add" anything to the discussion. But you know what, this has been discussed and THE MASSES AREN'T GOING TO WEAR THAT SHIT.

So, you dislike wearing glasses, but use them anyway because they provide a value to you. Did I get that correctly? What if a head-mounted display would provide some value to you that you would not get in any other way?

Value? No, they're a medical device that I have to wear.

Isn't "seeing clearly" a value? Point being – even if you don't like the form factor it might give you an ability that you can't have any other way.

Or it might just be some nerdy tech that a very small percent of people in the tech community feel the need to try and convince others that it is the future. It is not.

And no, seeing clearly is not a value. It is a necessity.

Absolutely agree that VR is not mainstream and it is currently positioned as mostly nerdy thing. However, I am not in the business of convincing anybody. If something happens and you will be forced to use it, I am sorry in advance.

To all the folks peddling VR, just take a look at the 3D TVs.

At one point they were the future, now they are nowhere.

Same will happen with the VR headsets.

Note: just like the peddlers are predicting that VR is the future, I’m predicting it’s not. Neither of us know the future. I’m as confident in my prediction as they are in theirs, or probably more since my prediction is not driven by self interest.

3D TVs were trash. Starring at a tiny rectangle with your head perfectly fixed to have a fake sense of depth was never going to fly. VR is immersive – you are in the environment and not starring at it through tiny rectangle. 3D TV is a subset of VR – watching a stereoscopic movie in HMD is a bit better since you can have IMAX-like image size in your tiny living room.

You having a tiny living room was just my assumption/prediction. It might be wrong as everything I am saying.

This - I played Vader Unleashed and at one point I was on a platform that was hovering hundreds of feet up and damn, I felt wary of looking over the edge.

It's also led to much faster laptimes in my sim racing, you can judge breaking points much better and the proper depth just makes driving more realistic.

Finally, I've done meetings in VR and found it to be less fatiguing, even with an HMD strapped to my face, than zoom.

The best Tetris player has beaten his record in VR too.

What conferencing software did you use? Horizon Workrooms?

Yes - it looks cartoonish at first, but you get over that quickly. The positional audio is on point as well.

Yep, the positional/spatial audio is godsend. Hearing people speak from different points in space, it is easier to track who is speaking. Also, branching of the main conversation to have a private "face-to-face" conversation.

I don't think many doubt we'll be using AR/VR all day, in all fields of endeavor, at some point. Certainly within 100 years.

But what about within 1~10 years?

It's not like 3D TVs in that nobody really needed them. AR/VR is needed, we just lack the tech to make it so far.

> AR/VR is needed

needed by whom and for what?

Metaverse?

Our biological eyes can only see about 0.0035 percent of the EM spectrum, our biological brains can only process so much incoming data and can only hold 7~11 items in working memory.

We suck at visualizing large numbers, perceiving probabilities or feeling intuitively anything that hunter-gatherer primates weren't designed to intuit.

An AR/VR set isn't just goggles: it's a wearable computer plugged into your eyes, which are plugged into your brain.

Our greatest leaps were made by people who could visualize things others couldn't, simulating them in their heads in 50 complex steps that build upon one another, then coming back down to Earth to explain it to the rest of us.

Give Isaac Newton, Nikola Tesla, Alan Turing, Albert Einstein, or Srinivasa Ramanujan an AR/VR set and see how much further they could extend their vision.

> An AR/VR set isn't just goggles: it's a wearable computer plugged into your eyes, which are plugged into your brain.

This is a powerful sentence and your whole comment nicely expresses why the tech is so important. Thank you.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants with AR/VR goggles plugged into my brain."

:D Another one that I am stealing.

This reads like it needs a (2015) in the title ;) In the meantime, VR has gone from massive overhype to at least having a small place in niche gaming (mainly combat flight simulators) where it will probably survive until the next hype cycle is due in ca 15..20 years.

The first usable VR headset was HTC Vive in 2016. Over the last 5 years the tech got way better – larger FOV, higher pixel density, lighter optics, smaller form factor, and a good number of game titles. Gaming started it (remember Pong?), but there are awful lot of other use cases waiting to be reinvented. The neat thing is that it can simulate the old media with a high fidelity, which is a hallmark of every major class of new medium.

Enough with the VR. Can't wait for this trend to pass.

Problem is (for me at least), after wearing a VR headset for 30 minutes my face starts looking like a raccoon's. Weight is an issue, especially for battery powered headsets.

Yes, better comfort is necessary for using it whole day. I am guessing Apple's tight vertical integration will drive the weight down to 300g (and maybe a bit less), while distributing it evenly so the face doesn't get smashed.

>It will weight 300g, and it will work for 5 hours on single charge.

Do normal people use computers for less than 5 hours per day?

Obviously you'll buy two and switch between them whenever they die.

seems like author is imagining the use case is more for gaming than for work. But I suppose if it had a fast charge during lunch break, that'd solve the problem.

5 hours was meant as a casual usage. Running a graphic-intensive game will be probably less. Fast charging with a dedicated stand would be a super nice thing.

The tech for perfect VR already exists: it’s called “the real world.” Seriously, go outside once in a while. Stop trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

I love real world, but my employer expects me to deliver stuff in a tiny rectangle sitting on my desk.

I can guarantee that if you let VR set expectations for you, you'll be in a much worse position than that.

What does this sentence mean?

Maybe related [1]:

[1] Elon Musk Says the Metaverse Sucks and Neuralink Will Be Better "Sure you can put a TV on your nose. I’m not sure that makes you 'in the metaverse.'": https://futurism.com/elon-musk-metaverse-sucks-neuralink-bet...

Musk saying a company he owns will deliver a better product is marketing. It could turn out that it's true, but whether it is or not he's going to say Neuralink is better.

Musk saying VR is good would be like him talking about how great the newest BMW is.

I agree. Just thought it is funny, because VR is really like putting a TV on one’s nose :)

Yes, VR is TV on a nose, but it's here and can be bought. Neuralink is way more important tech, but it is years/decades away.

It is funny anyway, and I see it mostly as a preparation for Neuralink in terms of its moral aspects, which is kinda interesting philosophically speaking.

Yes, HMD is direct visual input feed to your brain as you can get without being invasive. Neuralink implanted to visual cortex might get you similar feature, but neural "writing" (as opposed to reading, i.e. generating impulses in the brain) is a hard problem – we don't know how to encode the information. One route might be to just dump the signal in the cortex and hoping the brain will learn to interpret it as it does with other senses.

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