Fool me, this is real good shit ! [the VR thread]

[KlaxonCow]

Surely it's just triangulation.

You've got two angles - where your eyes are pointing - and the base distance between your eyes. That's enough information to complete the triangle.

With two angles, you can work out the third, as they must add up to 180 inside a triangle. Then the base distance between your eyes gives you the scale of the triangle to work out the other distances.

What's tricky is just the sensitivity required to get it working well. The distance between your eyes ain't much and pupils don't move around much either. Small numbers. Yet the things you could be looking at (in a virtual sense) could be miles away and you need to be really accurate.

The maths is easy. The problem, I think, would be building hardware with the required accuracy and precision to measure it sensitively enough to pull it off convincingly.

[Darkflame]

Well, yeah, I understood the principle but no clue about how close the precision is to making it possible.
I assume it cant be done with outdoor Ar - as you say, miles away isn't going to work.
But Indoor/nearby stuff? surely thats do-able. Could you sketch in 3d just by eye control?

No clue if its practical, but love to see it tried.

Signed up for availability ( when in UK ) or such ... "always keep an eye in new tech if it does not cost the moon"

I've yet to get any VR hmd. Id dive on this........if Elite ends up supporting it.

[zbandito]

It's easy to test. How well can you control your focal point without anything to focus on? Easier said than done. Perhaps if the drawing area had a 3d point field inside.. I'd imagine many people would find TiltBrush style interaction more appealing, although there is probably some use for disabled users, or visual effects.

[gumboot]

You're not going to focus on anything that isn't there, so you can make the distance more accurate by quantising it to whatever's actually visible.

[Dio]

Point of order: not a focal point. The correct technical name is the point of vergence. If you have a 3D headset on your focus is fixed.

However, it's worth noting that unless transparent objects are in play you don't need 3D tracking. Find where either eye is looking, and extend that line through 3D space, and you can identify the object it's looking at .

[KlaxonCow]

Yes, I was going to extend things to say that, actually, it really boils down to a 2D problem. Because your eyes naturally converge on the objects you're looking at.

It's not easy to make your eyes not do this - as anyone who's struggled to see those stereogram images that used to be popular will know. As you've got to stare at a point that's not on the surface of the poster to see the 3D effect. Some folks just can't do it and even those that could, wouldn't say it was easy to do or maintain. A tiny shift of your eyes and you'd lose it again.

(Mind you, personally, I used to mess around going crossed eyed as a kid and, thus, have mastered the ability to do it at will. So I have better control than most people tend to have and could easily nail those 3D posters by slowly going cross-eyed until I hit the point where I could see the 3D. Indeed, I've got this little "party trick" where I look all the way to the left, then go cross-eyed then look all the way right. So it looks like my eyes are moving independently. It can get a laugh when I do it and nobody's expecting it.)

And then, indeed, you can't see through opaque objects. So, in combination, this basically means that you could potentially track where one eye is looking on the 2D image in front of it, really. The second eye then just being a means to confirm and improve the precision, as you've got two 2D readings to work with.

So, in practice, the real issue with an arbitrary "3D cursor" is that humans just don't naturally use their eyes that way anyway.

But these are facts that would make eye tracking a lot easier to do, though. So it's not all bad news.

Also, strictly, selecting things with your gaze would actually be going beyond "virtual reality", as that's something you just can't do in reality. "Touching" stuff with your eyes. That would be an "enhanced reality" experience. Not that that doesn't make it useful or good, but just that it's not, unto itself, going to improve realism. In fact, it's taking you away from realism to a new kind of hyper-realism. Which probably would be quite awesome. But, yeah, just noting that this wouldn't be a technique for increasing virtual realism, but one for stepping beyond that to do new shit in VR that humans have never done before.

(I would have used the term "augmented reality" but that already means something else, so I'm coining "enhanced reality" for this sort of hyper-real ability / experience in a VR / AR world. Moving towards "transhumanism" and all that.)

[Darkflame]

Point of order: not a focal point. The correct technical name is the point of vergence. If you have a 3D headset on your focus is fixed.

However, it's worth noting that unless transparent objects are in play you don't need 3D tracking. Find where either eye is looking, and extend that line through 3D space, and you can identify the object it's looking at .

Only if things are already there.
I was thinking about 3d sketching. I recognize it wouldnt be that precise, but a purey eye controlled sketch-up would be cool

(Mind you, personally, I used to mess around going crossed eyed as a kid and, thus, have mastered the ability to do it at will. So I have better control than most people tend to have and could easily nail those 3D posters by slowly going cross-eyed until I hit the point where I could see the 3D. Indeed, I've got this little "party trick" where I look all the way to the left, then go cross-eyed then look all the way right. So it looks like my eyes are moving independently. It can get a laugh when I do it and nobody's expecting it.)

I have also mastered it.
You ever used your power on spot the difference pictures? the differences seem to flicker making them easy to spot.
You can be a god amongst 6 year olds!

[KlaxonCow]

You ever used your power on spot the difference pictures? the differences seem to flicker making them easy to spot.

I never even thought of that. That's quite clever.

[PVB]

FAO Giles:

Don't know if you're aware of this, but here's a handy guide to various PC VR controller configs:

https://twitter.com/TrevorFSmith/status ... 2283600896

[gumboot]

However, it's worth noting that unless transparent objects are in play you don't need 3D tracking. Find where either eye is looking, and extend that line through 3D space, and you can identify the object it's looking at .

Except at horizons.

[Darkflame]

Might also help separate out selection of things close together in a 2d projection but far apart depth wise.

[gilesgoat]

By the way if there's one thing that should go into FALSE ADVERTISING that should be "MS Mixed Reality Stuff" ...

So I tought that was "augmented reality" .. and when someone said $300 or so it's like "this SHOULD BE a no-brainer get / want it NOW" ..

But then you check and you find out "actually is a probably nice idea but still crappy(er?) VR headset" .. so "mixed my strafucking arse" .. it's VR and that's it ..

So what about this "famous partnership" between Oculus and MS ? .. now their are doing their own thing ..

I can see the war of VRs/VRs formats/SDKs/shitstorm coming ...

[Jamesac]

The only "war" I see is among fans, honestly. Rift and Vive are playing nicely and all other manufacturers are also-rans failing to make any kind of noise in the VR space. I expect the MS headset to be another Zune, honestly. Plus it helps that the platform is PC (PS VR excepted) and the headset is just a tool that enables PC games to run in a new way.

[Darkflame]

Rift and Vive are playing nicely and all other manufacturers are also-rans

Too soon to claim google and microsoft are also rans. Microsoft is not a headset btw - its a standard of which 4 3rd parties have signed up.

By the way if there's one thing that should go into FALSE ADVERTISING that should be "MS Mixed Reality Stuff" ...

So I tought that was "augmented reality" .. and when someone said $300 or so it's like "this SHOULD BE a no-brainer get / want it NOW" ..

But then you check and you find out "actually is a probably nice idea but still crappy(er?) VR headset" .. so "mixed my strafucking arse" .. it's VR and that's it ..

So what about this "famous partnership" between Oculus and MS ? .. now their are doing their own thing ..

I can see the war of VRs/VRs formats/SDKs/shitstorm coming ...

Microsoft hugely confused the naming convention.
MR used to be anything mixing real and virtual.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_reality
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_rea ... tinuum.svg
ie. The superset. Everything but the extremes.

Then when the hololens was shown they went all "This is not AR!! Its MR!! We arnt just much better Google Glass!!"
Which contradicts the superset def.

Then now they are using the old def again!

[Rhythm]

For anyone on the fence, Rift + Touch just dropped to £399 for the summer sale. Apparently it's a 6 week deal and it's available direct or through resellers like Amazon