3 ms·

I like how Google is trying to bring VR into everyone's home. However, how accurate can the head movement tracking actually be without some kind of external tr

I like how Google is trying to bring VR into everyone's home. However, how accurate can the head movement tracking actually be without some kind of external tracker? I'm sure there must be some perceptible drift between the actual position of your head and the tracked position.

dindresto 10y ago
I've been suspicious as well about that at first, but after having tried Google Cardboard myself on a OnePlus 3, I was surprised by how accurate accelerometer powered head tracking worked. I'm sure there are specific cases that aren't covered by this level of accuracy, but overall, it works perfectly fine.
- hashhar 10y ago
  It's not just accelerometer, the gyroscope is what makes it so stable. The gyroscope combined with the accelerometer and the compass is able to accurately find your relative motion in 3D space without any external references (just the initial point) using simple physics. But yes it also drifts but very slowly.
  - davesque 10y ago
    I wonder if there's any way to periodically compensate for the drift, such as with video information taken from the camera or something like that? Seems like it should be possible to do this.
wwwtyro 10y ago
Yeah, it's an important point. There's two primary aspects to head tracking - translational motion and rotational motion. Tracking rotation can be done pretty cheaply & with low latency these days, and I expect the Daydream viewer will probably handle it quite well. Translation is quite a bit more challenging, and I'm not expecting much in that department for this iteration. The issue can be addressed to some degree with a neck model that maps rotation to translation, but it can't handle real translation, such as leaning or walking around. This is on par with Oculus/Samsung's current mobile solution, the Gear VR headset.
soylentcola 10y ago
It's definitely important for really immersive VR experiences. I've not used the Vive or retail Rift but even on my Rift dev unit, tracking makes a huge difference in immersion versus just orientation tracking. I'd imagine that this is to be expected as it's a sort of "VR Lite" compared to more fully featured platforms. VR experiences will need to be designed with the limitations of the platform in mind and not rely on moving around in 3d space but rather focusing on head orientation.

dindresto 10y ago

I've been suspicious as well about that at first, but after having tried Google Cardboard myself on a OnePlus 3, I was surprised by how accurate accelerometer powered head tracking worked. I'm sure there are specific cases that aren't covered by this level of accuracy, but overall, it works perfectly fine.

hashhar 10y ago
It's not just accelerometer, the gyroscope is what makes it so stable. The gyroscope combined with the accelerometer and the compass is able to accurately find your relative motion in 3D space without any external references (just the initial point) using simple physics. But yes it also drifts but very slowly.
- davesque 10y ago
  I wonder if there's any way to periodically compensate for the drift, such as with video information taken from the camera or something like that? Seems like it should be possible to do this.

wwwtyro 10y ago

Yeah, it's an important point. There's two primary aspects to head tracking - translational motion and rotational motion. Tracking rotation can be done pretty cheaply & with low latency these days, and I expect the Daydream viewer will probably handle it quite well. Translation is quite a bit more challenging, and I'm not expecting much in that department for this iteration. The issue can be addressed to some degree with a neck model that maps rotation to translation, but it can't handle real translation, such as leaning or walking around. This is on par with Oculus/Samsung's current mobile solution, the Gear VR headset.

soylentcola 10y ago

It's definitely important for really immersive VR experiences. I've not used the Vive or retail Rift but even on my Rift dev unit, tracking makes a huge difference in immersion versus just orientation tracking. I'd imagine that this is to be expected as it's a sort of "VR Lite" compared to more fully featured platforms. VR experiences will need to be designed with the limitations of the platform in mind and not rely on moving around in 3d space but rather focusing on head orientation.