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After injuring the muscles in my back and shoulders, the only thing I've wanted VR for wasn't even the VR itself, but just an HMD for computing while laying dow

After injuring the muscles in my back and shoulders, the only thing I've wanted VR for wasn't even the VR itself, but just an HMD for computing while laying down. It's hard to imagine how difficult it is just to sit or stand at a desk till you injure the muscles that keep everything upright. The next step ideally would be a keyboard that comes with special gloves, or a pair of finger tip RFIDs or blutooths, one for each hand, that can be detected by some sensor on the keyboard, which can be used to calculate finger position in relation to the keyboard and display a virtual version of that on the bottom of the screen. These couple of peripherals shouldn't be too expensive to implement and bring to market I imagine. Touch typing is great and all, and I don't really look at the keyboard while typing directly, but for some odd reason, just seeing my hands barely in the bottom of my vision box makes all the difference in my ability to type accurately. I turn the lights off and I can't type for shit. Maybe it has to do with re-orienting my hands to the keyboard. As I type this I notice every once in a while after pausing that I briefly look down at the keyboard and then back up. Anyways, that was a small tangent, but VR should really focus on certain accessibility aspects going forward.

Yen 9y ago
Incidentally, I've noticed this same thing when trying to touch-type with a VR headset on. Even though I consider myself pretty good at touch typing, and even fairly accurate at touch-typing with my eyes closed, it's very difficult to type while in VR. Similarly, when I'm wearing a headset and I need to grab something off my desk quickly, and don't want to take off the headset, it can result in a lot of fumbling around. Interestingly enough, I find it helps to close my eyes, and I actually find things more quickly and accurately. So, even just a bit of video passthrough of the keyboard, or an in-VR visual excuse for why the keyboard & your hands are occluded from view, might be enough to solve touch-typing in VR.
mncharity 9y ago
I too found that I needed to see the keys. But while there are glove startups, and Leap Motion hand tracking can be usable, it's much easier to just see the keyboard. I use camera-passthrough AR on a Vive, with a ducktaped-on camera. The Vive's own camera is too low resolution (it's both fisheye, and bandwidth limited to 6?? x 4?? pixels). Other people have mounted a camera above the keyboard, and inserted only the keyboard image into their otherwise VR environment. Another option is to get an AR HMD. There's Hololens. And a "like Google Cardboard, but for AR" kickstarter? I've not been following the area. I've heard, but not tried, that one can make some use of seeing down past your nose on the Rift. So I've not found keyboard use a problem. But the low angular resolution has been. I get something like 40 lines of readable text without having to move my head. The Rift/Vive panels are low-resolution per eye, and are PenTile (so it's really even less), and you're only able to use the center third or half. That's not much realestate. But, if you're ok with that, you can do RDP... there are youtube videos. I've heard people who commonly work in small terminal windows can be happy. The new Windows VR HMDs (available now as developer versions) are said to be higher resolution, with perhaps poorer optics, but I've not tried them yet. AR HMD's have narrower fields of view, and thus higher angular resolution. So Hololens et al might be an alternative, but I've not tried that. Depending on your constraints, another option might a projector - projecting on a ceiling, wall, or suspended screen.

Yen 9y ago

Incidentally, I've noticed this same thing when trying to touch-type with a VR headset on. Even though I consider myself pretty good at touch typing, and even fairly accurate at touch-typing with my eyes closed, it's very difficult to type while in VR. Similarly, when I'm wearing a headset and I need to grab something off my desk quickly, and don't want to take off the headset, it can result in a lot of fumbling around. Interestingly enough, I find it helps to close my eyes, and I actually find things more quickly and accurately. So, even just a bit of video passthrough of the keyboard, or an in-VR visual excuse for why the keyboard & your hands are occluded from view, might be enough to solve touch-typing in VR.

mncharity 9y ago

I too found that I needed to see the keys. But while there are glove startups, and Leap Motion hand tracking can be usable, it's much easier to just see the keyboard. I use camera-passthrough AR on a Vive, with a ducktaped-on camera. The Vive's own camera is too low resolution (it's both fisheye, and bandwidth limited to 6?? x 4?? pixels). Other people have mounted a camera above the keyboard, and inserted only the keyboard image into their otherwise VR environment. Another option is to get an AR HMD. There's Hololens. And a "like Google Cardboard, but for AR" kickstarter? I've not been following the area. I've heard, but not tried, that one can make some use of seeing down past your nose on the Rift. So I've not found keyboard use a problem. But the low angular resolution has been. I get something like 40 lines of readable text without having to move my head. The Rift/Vive panels are low-resolution per eye, and are PenTile (so it's really even less), and you're only able to use the center third or half. That's not much realestate. But, if you're ok with that, you can do RDP... there are youtube videos. I've heard people who commonly work in small terminal windows can be happy. The new Windows VR HMDs (available now as developer versions) are said to be higher resolution, with perhaps poorer optics, but I've not tried them yet. AR HMD's have narrower fields of view, and thus higher angular resolution. So Hololens et al might be an alternative, but I've not tried that. Depending on your constraints, another option might a projector - projecting on a ceiling, wall, or suspended screen.