iMyth

Tag: Steam VR Tracking

  • Steam VR Approaching House Scale Tracking?

    Steam VR Approaching House Scale Tracking?

    One of the Holy Grails to rise above the first generation of VR is to move from room-scale tracking to warehouse or house scale tracking. During the The Courier prototyping phase, the iMyth crew was able to extend the Steam VR Tracking to 20 feet by 20 feet. There were artifacts with this scale including dead zones and intermittent spotty coverage. I have been anxiously waiting the arrival of Steam Tracking 2.0. I though it would be available by last December however it is only just starting to show up with certain Vive Pro packages.

    To hype the release of the new Steam VR tracking, Vive China President Alvin Wang Graylin Twitted a video of seven new SteamVR 2.0 base stations hooked up to a single Steam account after a SteamVR beta update. Inside the video, a participant navigates continuously through three separate rooms and interacts with multiple tracked objects. Seven V2.0 Lighthouses were used to track the experience space. We have no idea what the viewing experience was like but it did not seem as if the participant was slowed by dropped coverage or dead zones. He even travels through closed doors.

    https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/1016992465742585857

    One of the really impressive aspects of this is that the group achieved a tracking area 67 square meters which more than double the recommended size of 25 square meters of the Steam Tracking 1.0. Here is the floor space schematic of the test.

    While currently being distributed, Steam Tracking 2.0 is still being developed and it will still be a while before technology at this scale reaches the consuming public. Evidently the off-the-shelf version of the trackers will only work with 4 trackers not 7 as reported by lead Steam VR Tracking developer Alan Yates. He confirmed that while it is possible to link 4 lighthouses at the moment, the released video is still prototype and a bit premature.

    Even though 7 Lighthouses is still not within grasp, I would still love to get my hands on 4 Lighthouses. Who knows? Maybe if the Lighthouses could be daisy chained in a linear sequence we could still achieve 75 square meters of tracked coverage. The imagination just spins!

  • Steam VR Components

    Steam VR Components

    A year and a half I had the privilege to attend SteamVR training. Steam tracking is amazing piece of engineering. The solution has only improved with version 2.0 which has just now started releasing.

    I was all hopped up and ready to start creating my own Steam VR controllers and tracked object. That was until Triad Semi-conductors, the manufacturer of the new tracking chip released the prices for it’s SDK. 

    Wow! almost $600 for one kit. My dreams for creating my own controllers for Steam VR were dashed. I did not have those kind of resources. Until I had an actual product to work with this tool kit would have to remain out of my grasp.

    Today I learned about another player in the Steam VR line, Virtual Builds, that has just released a new kit for $200. 

    If purchase a-la-carte the board and sensors would probably still cost you the same. Still, $200 is a lot cheaper than $600.

    When I can get back into the game of creating my own controllers this will definitely one of the first places I check out!

  • Update on Steam VR 2.0

    Update on Steam VR 2.0

    There are two bits of information out there giving some direction of where HTC and Steam will be taking with the Vive.

    In fact, I know this may be too early guessing, maybe the next generation of HMD coming from this collaboration won’t even be called the ‘Vive‘ any longer. What are your thoughts?

    On first order, the engineers at SteamVR reminded all future developers to start ordering their new, STeamVR 2.0, base stations. The new base stations will not be compatible with the old HMDs. These new base stations will only be compatible with the new TS4231 sensors. Good for backwards compatibility, these new sensors will still respond with the old lighthouse base stations. These new base stations will be cheaper, have no moving parts and will not have sync issues. Steam is asking manufacturers to start making orders now. The manufactures must buy them in bulks of 45 at $60 a piece and supply no packaging and no mounting equipment. The retail price of the new base stations will probably be more expensive than $60 but we’ll just have to wait for the MSRP in 2018.

    What is really exciting about these new bases is that they will soon be able to support up to four base stations working in conjunction with each other, covering volumes of up to 10 cubic meters. That is really big! In fact it is so big that that should be a sufficient enough space to implement redirected walking seamlessly without resetting. Of course there would be caveats in the environment to compensate for the limited space. However with a 10mX10m space you should only have to worry about a reset ever 13m which is still quite a large distance! This is super exciting and more information as things continue to develop.

    The next bit of information invites even more room for conjecture. HTC has just applied for a New Zealand patent for a new HMD called the HTC Eclipse. The HTC Focus was thought to be the new, wireless mobile headset to be compatible with the new Windows 10 VR suite. The new HTC Eclipse has these particular tags: head mounted display for computer simulated reality, motion tracking sensors, handheld computer simulated reality controllers. ” Is this an indication of the next generation of VR?  Time will only tell. However, the simultaneous release of the next generation of tracking and this new HMD may be more than coincidence.

  • Sensics’ New Professional Grade HMD

    Sensics’ New Professional Grade HMD

    Sensics, a long time manufacturer of high end Head Mounted Display devices, has recently released its new professional grade HMD geared towards VRArcades and amusement parks.

    This new headset has two versions: $2160.00 and $2590.00. Sanitation and Resolution are it’s big selling points. Hygienically, the new units include a machine-washable, hypoallergenic face mask that physically separates from the display. This detached face mask has two advantages. First it is easily set aside and sanitized for later use apart from the disply, expensive part of the HMD. Secondly, participants can strap in and adjust the headset for optimal fit before clipping into the display. Both of these contribute to greater customer throughput. No longer does the attraction need to stop between sessions so the new users can exchange sets with the old. The new users prep themselves before the start of the experience, receive the display portion from the prior users then immediately start the experience with minimum downtime. Experience operators then sanitize the used face masks and help the next participants prepare for their own experiences.

    The resolution of the more expensive unit is 1440×1600@90 Hz LCD which is 70{76c5cb8798b4dc9652375d1c19c86d53c1d1411f4e030dd406aa284e63c21817} larger than the Vive/Oculus display at 1080X1200. Whether the rendering engine can handle that much more throughput is an entirely different issue and will need be explored. The cheaper unit resolution is 2160X1200@90Hz OLED. Here are some of the image comparisons:

    Currently the headsets will be equipped with integrated 9-axis orientation trackers which is very similar to what you currently have in your cell phone. For room scale and larger experiences, this headset lends itself naturally to an OptiTrack or Vicon tracking solution. Regretfully, this does not sound immediately compatible with Steam VR tracking. However, a third party could very well create an attached controller which could track the headset as an added component to an existing Vive setup.

    While this system sounds very interesting, at this moment in time the cost for these units is very expensive and prohibitive. Past the R&D and prototyping stages this tool would be very useful for commercial usage.

     

  • iMyth MOCAP Suit Test #2

    iMyth MOCAP Suit Test #2

    As promised, here is the second test for the iMyth MOCAP Suit. As a full disclaimer, the system is still very primitive and has far to go yet. But forward progress is being made.

    The system is made with 5 Steam VR controllers mounted on the interactor; one on the waist, two on the wrists and two on the feet. iMyth member Chris Brown devised this first iteration. At this moment in time, there are only positional offsets represented. This is no orientation information yet. That will be the next step. Similarly, there are no scale adjustments made for the differences in scale between the interactor and the avatar. Once those are calibrated with the proper pole vector simulation, the animation will appear much smoother and accurate. There is a certain amount of latency present in the system. We will need to look into that further. Quite possibly translating the blueprints to actual C++ classes will speed things up. However, for these early  experimental stages, blueprints will work just fine. The system is implemented using Steam VR tracking and the UE4 game engine. More really good stuff to come!