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VR advancements to look out for in 2017: - Eye tracking (it already works perfectly, I've tried it myself at SIGGRAPH), this will enable a few cool things:

VR advancements to look out for in 2017: - Eye tracking (it already works perfectly, I've tried it myself at SIGGRAPH), this will enable a few cool things: - Foveated Rendering - rendering only what is in the fovea view at high quality and using a lower quality method for the periphery. Reduces rendering requirement by ~75%, enabling either higher-end graphics on the desktop, or the ability to move many desktop-bound VR applications to mobile. - Eye-assisted interactivity - SMI had a demo at SIGGRAPH where they demonstrated using where your eyes were looking to increase precision of interactions with controllers in VR (for example, grabbing very small objects in VR accurately). - Inside-Out Tracking - using computer vision to provide 6DoF tracking for headsets without the need for external trackers. Will allow mobile headsets to have positional tracking (which is SO VERY important for VR) and will allow desktop headsets to have lower setup complexity (less important). - note: Microsoft will likely dominate this by my guess, seeing as probably the strongest part of the Hololens is it's excellent tracking. - Wireless adapters for existing headsets - these made a big splash at CES and apparently work pretty well. Making the existing experience un-tethered will definitely help room-scale experiences. - Self-Contained headsets - this is vital to mass-adoption of VR imo. I think we'll see some of these this year, though probably not from HTC/Oculus yet. AR, while definitely more the "consumer" product in the long run, is still far off as the display tech just isn't there yet. But the above advancements in VR pave a way for AR in the future, until there is no longer a distinction between them device-wise, but it rather becomes a slider of "how much reality do you want to replace?".

RangerScience 10y ago
Which eye-tracking tech did you try at SIGGRAPH?
- carlosdp 10y ago
  The SMI one, and the accompanying Nvidia foveated rendering demo.
  - RangerScience 10y ago
    Were they in VR headsets (or glasses), or were they the desktop bars? (Last time I tried a bunch of eye tracking, the desk-mounted was amazing and the head-mounted wasn't)
    - carlosdp 10y ago
      They were inside the headset, lining the lens, such that you couldn't tell between a normal Vive and an eye-tracking Vive unless you cracked it open.
      - RangerScience 10y ago
        Amazing!
ska 10y ago
Hololens tracking isn't nearly good enough, in my opinion, and isn't going to get there soon. Vision algorithms + and inertial tracker could be interesting though. Appropriate tech exists, but is currently expensive. There has been good work on eye tracking in other spaces for many years now, so that seems a much cleaner implementation path to work well. edit: I'm going to add a caveat, I mostly care about VR and AR in decidedly non-consumer applications, so my bar may be unreasonably high for many consumer applications.
- JacobKyle 10y ago
  What did you find wrong with the Hololens tracking? I use it a couple times a week and have been super impressed with it so far. Seems to very solidly lock on locations, and I can walk to the far end of the office and my content is still right where I left it. You can use is in huge unbound areas and it doesn't mind at all. The Hololens still has a lot of issues, the FOV's crappy, hand tracking needs a lot of work, occlusion isn't great, etc. but tracking is one place that they're top of the game.
  - ska 10y ago
    It's probably fine if you just want "if I go back to my desk, this window is on the left hand side". If you want more precision and accuracy, or consistency with physical measurements/other tracking systems, it's not so good in my experience. Happy to revise/update that experience though!
    - carlosdp 10y ago
      That kind of precision isn't necessary for tracking position accurately for VR/AR though, Hololens' current system is pretty damn good and I'm sure internally it's improved a bunch as they roll out their own VR headsets too.
      - ska 10y ago
        It absolutely is needed for many AR applications. VR is a bit more forgiving, particularly if you are talking consumer and games. Any time you need maintain a relationship to the physical space you are in you can run into trouble though.

RangerScience 10y ago

Which eye-tracking tech did you try at SIGGRAPH?

carlosdp 10y ago
The SMI one, and the accompanying Nvidia foveated rendering demo.
- RangerScience 10y ago
  Were they in VR headsets (or glasses), or were they the desktop bars? (Last time I tried a bunch of eye tracking, the desk-mounted was amazing and the head-mounted wasn't)
  - carlosdp 10y ago
    They were inside the headset, lining the lens, such that you couldn't tell between a normal Vive and an eye-tracking Vive unless you cracked it open.
    - RangerScience 10y ago
      Amazing!

ska 10y ago

Hololens tracking isn't nearly good enough, in my opinion, and isn't going to get there soon. Vision algorithms + and inertial tracker could be interesting though. Appropriate tech exists, but is currently expensive. There has been good work on eye tracking in other spaces for many years now, so that seems a much cleaner implementation path to work well. edit: I'm going to add a caveat, I mostly care about VR and AR in decidedly non-consumer applications, so my bar may be unreasonably high for many consumer applications.

JacobKyle 10y ago
What did you find wrong with the Hololens tracking? I use it a couple times a week and have been super impressed with it so far. Seems to very solidly lock on locations, and I can walk to the far end of the office and my content is still right where I left it. You can use is in huge unbound areas and it doesn't mind at all. The Hololens still has a lot of issues, the FOV's crappy, hand tracking needs a lot of work, occlusion isn't great, etc. but tracking is one place that they're top of the game.
- ska 10y ago
  It's probably fine if you just want "if I go back to my desk, this window is on the left hand side". If you want more precision and accuracy, or consistency with physical measurements/other tracking systems, it's not so good in my experience. Happy to revise/update that experience though!
  - carlosdp 10y ago
    That kind of precision isn't necessary for tracking position accurately for VR/AR though, Hololens' current system is pretty damn good and I'm sure internally it's improved a bunch as they roll out their own VR headsets too.
    - ska 10y ago
      It absolutely is needed for many AR applications. VR is a bit more forgiving, particularly if you are talking consumer and games. Any time you need maintain a relationship to the physical space you are in you can run into trouble though.