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I think VR will become mainstream when it's good enough to replace large screens in productive work. It should leave large screens in dust, if done right. Prod

by Geee 6y ago

I think VR will become mainstream when it's good enough to replace large screens in productive work. It should leave large screens in dust, if done right. Productivity is quite strongly correlated with screen size, so I'm expecting quite a leap in this regard when the right software is matched with the right hardware.

canada_dry 6y ago
> good enough to replace large screens The resolution is pretty good already and rapidly getting better. What I'm excited about is hand tracking [i] so that I can use a real keyboard (and interact with real objects e.g. coffee cup) to type while I'm wearing a headset. [i] https://youtu.be/XnG1l0qQW9k https://youtu.be/XnG1l0qQW9k
- forgotmysn 6y ago
  thats true, but for most headsets, resolution still isn't high enough to read bodies of text without eye fatigue. until that is solved, I don't think VR will move from entertainment to productivity. Varjo is getting closer to that resolution level, but their headsets are priced for enterprise ($8k i think?)
  - dougmwne 6y ago
    I pulled my neck last week and spent the weekend working, watching amazon prime and playing xbox cloud streaming flat on my back on a 10 foot virtual screen. I was working for multiple hours at a time reviewing programming specifications and taking notes. The display tech is pretty much there, even for text. Keyboard input is still unsolved, though I was using Office 365 dictation and that was working well for taking notes. This was on the Quest 2. The fresnel lenses are actually a bigger downside than the screen resolution, which is not retina, but still better than the 24" 1080p external display I use all day.
    - novok 6y ago
      When I tried it, it wasn't that good. The screens on the Q2 felt like a resolution of something between 720 and 1080p, which isn't that good compared to my dual 4k monitors. Same with a 8k & 6k 180 & 360 video. Overall VR feels like it needs a 4x resolution bump. Basically a 16k 360 video rendering and 4k x 4k per eye vs the 1832x1920 per eye that the current q2 has. To do that well you probably need something like a two 3080 GPUs, one for each eye. Even after that, maybe even an 8k x 8k would give a big improvement. We don't have GPUs that can render that today. Foveated rendering is definitely needed for this to become possible.
      - shpx 6y ago
        If you have $4000 to spend, you can get the new Varjo VR-3. It has a 27° by 27° display with 71 pixels-per-degree resolution embedded in a 115° wide display at 30 PPD. 20/20 vision is ~60 PPD for ~210°. https://www.roadtovr.com/varjo-xr-3-vr-3-announcement-specs-release-date-price/ https://www.roadtovr.com/varjo-xr-3-vr-3-announcement-specs-...
  - klibertp 6y ago
    > but for most headsets, resolution still isn't high enough to read bodies of text without eye fatigue. Most? Is there anything, no matter how expensive, which is currently capable of clearly presenting large bodies of text? The moment something like this appears I'm going to buy it even if I had to sell my kidney for it! EDIT: forgot about input. I'd probably be willing to finally learn to touch-type, if that would be enough. I'd probably be happier with being able to see the keyboard once in a while, though.
    - Geee 6y ago
      Varjo has human-eye resolution in VR/AR. https://varjo.com/ https://varjo.com/
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      Hololens is technically a headset, right? It gives you 47 pixels per degree, which exactly matches the CSS reference pixel of 96 DPI at 28 inches. VR headsets are generally stuck in the mud at about 15 pixels per degree. But it makes sense when you consider how crippling the hololens field of view is... https://mk0uploadvrcom4bcwhj.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/AROverall.png https://mk0uploadvrcom4bcwhj.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/upload...
outworlder 6y ago
I actually considered this when I was buying a new monitor. "This thing will be obsolete pretty soon". Headsets are still a little bulky (and not enough resolution) for that to happen. Once that's fixed (and more importantly, with many people shifting to work from home, so they don't have to care about people staring), I expect it to become a pretty popular thing. If the virtual monitor is overlaying a camera feed of your environment(AR style), this will be amazing. Imagine a headset not much heavier than sunglasses sitting on your desk, rather than a big (or multiple!) monitors. Put it on, you have as much screen real state as you would like, and can be made to look like an actual monitor. That's with our current 2D thinking. We can probably do more useful visualizations in 3D.
- Geee 6y ago
  Exactly. And you can fill your whole room with interactive information. You could have hundreds or more files open at the same time and see how they interact. Human brain is pretty good at complex visual/spatial things and I don't think we are aware of the limits yet.
zmmmmm 6y ago
Yep, this is one of those threshold type things that makes future predictions wrong all the time. Currently the resolution is just too low - I really gave it a good try with a lot of motivation but it just doesn't cut it. You can make text readable but only if you size the virtual monitor to be huge and the effective resolution is way less in the end than a pretty cheap external monitor. But once it hits the point of being usable I don't see why we won't see a complete domino effect where people start setting up complete virtual offices in VR. And that will ripple through whole teams flipping to VR a sa way of working. Putting aside sheer "size", you can make VR monitors any shape and in any position you want. So I can actually have a gigantic monitor with a complex technical diagram on it, then a vertical one next to it with a code listing - and these can be floating in space in a totally unrealistic way. Then I can have email floating in the air behind me ...

by Geee 6y ago

canada_dry 6y ago

> good enough to replace large screens The resolution is pretty good already and rapidly getting better. What I'm excited about is hand tracking [i] so that I can use a real keyboard (and interact with real objects e.g. coffee cup) to type while I'm wearing a headset. [i] https://youtu.be/XnG1l0qQW9k https://youtu.be/XnG1l0qQW9k

forgotmysn 6y ago
thats true, but for most headsets, resolution still isn't high enough to read bodies of text without eye fatigue. until that is solved, I don't think VR will move from entertainment to productivity. Varjo is getting closer to that resolution level, but their headsets are priced for enterprise ($8k i think?)
- dougmwne 6y ago
  I pulled my neck last week and spent the weekend working, watching amazon prime and playing xbox cloud streaming flat on my back on a 10 foot virtual screen. I was working for multiple hours at a time reviewing programming specifications and taking notes. The display tech is pretty much there, even for text. Keyboard input is still unsolved, though I was using Office 365 dictation and that was working well for taking notes. This was on the Quest 2. The fresnel lenses are actually a bigger downside than the screen resolution, which is not retina, but still better than the 24" 1080p external display I use all day.
  - novok 6y ago
    When I tried it, it wasn't that good. The screens on the Q2 felt like a resolution of something between 720 and 1080p, which isn't that good compared to my dual 4k monitors. Same with a 8k & 6k 180 & 360 video. Overall VR feels like it needs a 4x resolution bump. Basically a 16k 360 video rendering and 4k x 4k per eye vs the 1832x1920 per eye that the current q2 has. To do that well you probably need something like a two 3080 GPUs, one for each eye. Even after that, maybe even an 8k x 8k would give a big improvement. We don't have GPUs that can render that today. Foveated rendering is definitely needed for this to become possible.
    - shpx 6y ago
      If you have $4000 to spend, you can get the new Varjo VR-3. It has a 27° by 27° display with 71 pixels-per-degree resolution embedded in a 115° wide display at 30 PPD. 20/20 vision is ~60 PPD for ~210°. https://www.roadtovr.com/varjo-xr-3-vr-3-announcement-specs-release-date-price/ https://www.roadtovr.com/varjo-xr-3-vr-3-announcement-specs-...
- klibertp 6y ago
  > but for most headsets, resolution still isn't high enough to read bodies of text without eye fatigue. Most? Is there anything, no matter how expensive, which is currently capable of clearly presenting large bodies of text? The moment something like this appears I'm going to buy it even if I had to sell my kidney for it! EDIT: forgot about input. I'd probably be willing to finally learn to touch-type, if that would be enough. I'd probably be happier with being able to see the keyboard once in a while, though.
  - Geee 6y ago
    Varjo has human-eye resolution in VR/AR. https://varjo.com/ https://varjo.com/
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    Hololens is technically a headset, right? It gives you 47 pixels per degree, which exactly matches the CSS reference pixel of 96 DPI at 28 inches. VR headsets are generally stuck in the mud at about 15 pixels per degree. But it makes sense when you consider how crippling the hololens field of view is... https://mk0uploadvrcom4bcwhj.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/AROverall.png https://mk0uploadvrcom4bcwhj.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/upload...

outworlder 6y ago

I actually considered this when I was buying a new monitor. "This thing will be obsolete pretty soon". Headsets are still a little bulky (and not enough resolution) for that to happen. Once that's fixed (and more importantly, with many people shifting to work from home, so they don't have to care about people staring), I expect it to become a pretty popular thing. If the virtual monitor is overlaying a camera feed of your environment(AR style), this will be amazing. Imagine a headset not much heavier than sunglasses sitting on your desk, rather than a big (or multiple!) monitors. Put it on, you have as much screen real state as you would like, and can be made to look like an actual monitor. That's with our current 2D thinking. We can probably do more useful visualizations in 3D.

Geee 6y ago
Exactly. And you can fill your whole room with interactive information. You could have hundreds or more files open at the same time and see how they interact. Human brain is pretty good at complex visual/spatial things and I don't think we are aware of the limits yet.

zmmmmm 6y ago

Yep, this is one of those threshold type things that makes future predictions wrong all the time. Currently the resolution is just too low - I really gave it a good try with a lot of motivation but it just doesn't cut it. You can make text readable but only if you size the virtual monitor to be huge and the effective resolution is way less in the end than a pretty cheap external monitor. But once it hits the point of being usable I don't see why we won't see a complete domino effect where people start setting up complete virtual offices in VR. And that will ripple through whole teams flipping to VR a sa way of working. Putting aside sheer "size", you can make VR monitors any shape and in any position you want. So I can actually have a gigantic monitor with a complex technical diagram on it, then a vertical one next to it with a code listing - and these can be floating in space in a totally unrealistic way. Then I can have email floating in the air behind me ...