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People get sick mostly because of the neurological issues associated with keeping eyes focused on objects at fixed lengths even though they are perceived as far

by fjabre 8y ago

People get sick mostly because of the neurological issues associated with keeping eyes focused on objects at fixed lengths even though they are perceived as far away in the VR world. Vergence-accommodation conflict: https://medium.com/vrinflux-dot-com/vergence-accommodation-conflict-is-a-bitch-here-s-how-to-design-around-it-87dab1a7d9ba https://medium.com/vrinflux-dot-com/vergence-accommodation-c...

moron4hire 8y ago
Vergence accommodation conflict is a contributor but not anywhere near a primary source.
- fjabre 8y ago
  The jury is still out on that. There simply is no research to prove or disprove what you or I are saying. My educated guess is that it actually is quite important and the key to making VR more comfortable for long term use. I think it is the primary issue. I am a software developer who works in the neuroscience field. I am not an MD but I have read enough research to know you cannot definitively say what the cause is, and that disrupting such natural processes in the brain are likely to have consequences. To me it seems obvious that it's the primary source of the headaches and nausea commonly associated with VR. For example I have certainly felt sick in the real world from roller coasters. But I have never felt the type of sick I get when I put on a VR helmet. It's another feeling all together. And it comes on differently than any other sick feeling I've had. This is anecdotal of course. I digress. If VR doesn't solve this issue, VR doesn't go anywhere IMHO. But it's obvious they will solve it in time and as someone who closely follows the field it seems to be one of their primary concerns.
  - moron4hire 8y ago
    I've been working in VR and AR for nearly a decade. I've even built my own headsets. The experiences that make people sick are always low framerate. I've put people through experiences pegged at 90FPS for hours at a time with no nausea.
    - fjabre 8y ago
      Perfectly valid point. I still think vergence/accommodation needs to be solved as an important key step in VR dev for more comfortable experiences. Its harder to do than just upping frame rates. You need foveated rendering to start with but im sure you know the rest. If you want VR, well you need actual VR. Its not enough to trick your vision superficially. You have trick the whole system. I digress.
      - moron4hire 8y ago
        Foveated rendering doesn't solve vergence accommodation. Your eye will still be focused at infinity regardless of where you are looking, you'll just have the illusion that the foreground or background are out of focus. Eye tracking plus dynamic lenses (perhaps liquid lenses) or real light fields are necessary.
  - dTal 8y ago
    The primary engineering challenge of VR is motion sickness caused by a mismatch of visual and inner ear information, which is extremely well established as causing people to throw up in a wide range of contexts outside of VR. The principles behind modern VR tech are decades old - the reason we're getting consumer VR now, in the late 2010s, is because commodity computing hardware is now fast enough to render scenes and track heads with a low enough latency to prevent motion sickness. However, low hardware latency is necessary but not sufficient to prevent motion sickness - the application developer also has a responsibility not to throw the user around in virtual space without corresponding real-world movement. A great many VR applications do not respect this principle - two such programs were mentioned by JabavuAdams at the top of the thread. Hence, the primary cause of nausea on VR is motion sickness caused by content. Yes, even in a decent VR experience you will get headaches after an hour or two, possibly or even probably from vergence-accomodation conflict. But that's entirely secondary - you won't last more than a couple minutes on a virtual roller coaster.
JabavuAdams 8y ago
If this were true, why can I stay in The Lab for hours, but I get sick in Everest VR in minutes, on the same hardware? Why did the dozens of VR devs I have talked to get sick on 2014-2015 hardware, playing tech-demos, but they don't on 2018 hardware, playing games designed for comfort? Also, lack of positional sensing (versus angular) on mobile VR devices is a much bigger contributor to discomfort. I'm not sure why you're so keen on vergence accommodation, but it seems that you're focusing on a tiny effect, when the large effects are known. Just because there's little in the peer-reviewed literature, does not mean that this is poorly understood by practitioners.
- fjabre 8y ago
  I come from a neuroscience background hence my bias. It's the fundamental way in which we focus on objects in the real world. It is not functioning normally at all with a headset on. No one Ive met can stay in VR for hours regardless of game. Most of my friends who have tried or have VR devices get sick after 45 minutes. Admittedly they are not VR enthusiasts or hard core gamers however.
  - BubRoss 8y ago
    That sounds pretty anecdotal for a scientist.
    - fjabre 8y ago
      Not a scientist. I'm a developer who has been working in the neuroscience field for 15 years, specifically with brain stimulation devices. I'm not saying this qualifies as any sort of degree nor was I saying you should count my anecdotes as facts. It is simply my belief that the vergence-accommodation conflict needs to be solved before VR will be adopted by the masses. I think vergence-accommodation neurological process should stay coupled as it does in nature to provide a completely natural feeling and non strained experience for the user. The research here is scant. Perhaps someone is aware of some ongoing research on this topic.
  - JabavuAdams 8y ago

by fjabre 8y ago

moron4hire 8y ago

Vergence accommodation conflict is a contributor but not anywhere near a primary source.

fjabre 8y ago
The jury is still out on that. There simply is no research to prove or disprove what you or I are saying. My educated guess is that it actually is quite important and the key to making VR more comfortable for long term use. I think it is the primary issue. I am a software developer who works in the neuroscience field. I am not an MD but I have read enough research to know you cannot definitively say what the cause is, and that disrupting such natural processes in the brain are likely to have consequences. To me it seems obvious that it's the primary source of the headaches and nausea commonly associated with VR. For example I have certainly felt sick in the real world from roller coasters. But I have never felt the type of sick I get when I put on a VR helmet. It's another feeling all together. And it comes on differently than any other sick feeling I've had. This is anecdotal of course. I digress. If VR doesn't solve this issue, VR doesn't go anywhere IMHO. But it's obvious they will solve it in time and as someone who closely follows the field it seems to be one of their primary concerns.
- moron4hire 8y ago
  I've been working in VR and AR for nearly a decade. I've even built my own headsets. The experiences that make people sick are always low framerate. I've put people through experiences pegged at 90FPS for hours at a time with no nausea.
  - fjabre 8y ago
    Perfectly valid point. I still think vergence/accommodation needs to be solved as an important key step in VR dev for more comfortable experiences. Its harder to do than just upping frame rates. You need foveated rendering to start with but im sure you know the rest. If you want VR, well you need actual VR. Its not enough to trick your vision superficially. You have trick the whole system. I digress.
    - moron4hire 8y ago
      Foveated rendering doesn't solve vergence accommodation. Your eye will still be focused at infinity regardless of where you are looking, you'll just have the illusion that the foreground or background are out of focus. Eye tracking plus dynamic lenses (perhaps liquid lenses) or real light fields are necessary.
- dTal 8y ago
  The primary engineering challenge of VR is motion sickness caused by a mismatch of visual and inner ear information, which is extremely well established as causing people to throw up in a wide range of contexts outside of VR. The principles behind modern VR tech are decades old - the reason we're getting consumer VR now, in the late 2010s, is because commodity computing hardware is now fast enough to render scenes and track heads with a low enough latency to prevent motion sickness. However, low hardware latency is necessary but not sufficient to prevent motion sickness - the application developer also has a responsibility not to throw the user around in virtual space without corresponding real-world movement. A great many VR applications do not respect this principle - two such programs were mentioned by JabavuAdams at the top of the thread. Hence, the primary cause of nausea on VR is motion sickness caused by content. Yes, even in a decent VR experience you will get headaches after an hour or two, possibly or even probably from vergence-accomodation conflict. But that's entirely secondary - you won't last more than a couple minutes on a virtual roller coaster.

JabavuAdams 8y ago

If this were true, why can I stay in The Lab for hours, but I get sick in Everest VR in minutes, on the same hardware? Why did the dozens of VR devs I have talked to get sick on 2014-2015 hardware, playing tech-demos, but they don't on 2018 hardware, playing games designed for comfort? Also, lack of positional sensing (versus angular) on mobile VR devices is a much bigger contributor to discomfort. I'm not sure why you're so keen on vergence accommodation, but it seems that you're focusing on a tiny effect, when the large effects are known. Just because there's little in the peer-reviewed literature, does not mean that this is poorly understood by practitioners.

fjabre 8y ago
I come from a neuroscience background hence my bias. It's the fundamental way in which we focus on objects in the real world. It is not functioning normally at all with a headset on. No one Ive met can stay in VR for hours regardless of game. Most of my friends who have tried or have VR devices get sick after 45 minutes. Admittedly they are not VR enthusiasts or hard core gamers however.
- BubRoss 8y ago
  That sounds pretty anecdotal for a scientist.
  - fjabre 8y ago
    Not a scientist. I'm a developer who has been working in the neuroscience field for 15 years, specifically with brain stimulation devices. I'm not saying this qualifies as any sort of degree nor was I saying you should count my anecdotes as facts. It is simply my belief that the vergence-accommodation conflict needs to be solved before VR will be adopted by the masses. I think vergence-accommodation neurological process should stay coupled as it does in nature to provide a completely natural feeling and non strained experience for the user. The research here is scant. Perhaps someone is aware of some ongoing research on this topic.
- JabavuAdams 8y ago