Hello,I was seeing a lot of people trying to reproduce a keyboard in VR , due to the fact you cannot see your own keyboard when using the rift, the problem with that, is that we already have a real keyboard available in the room.So its a shame to do something Virtual, with no "feedback" and touch feeling, when you can actually use the one in the room.So why not create a new hardware for VR :A keyboard with positional tracking, and his own custom model in VRSo when you're in the VR, you can locate your keyboard on the desk (only when you need to)And use it like normal.I think this should be one of the first step of real "touch" VR.You can even think of an option where the keyboard have a camera inside like the Leap, able to make your hand appearwhen you're going to type on it.And make your hands be the trigger to the keyboard/hand appearence in VR (when you need it for menu or anything else).

I've been thinking something similar - there really is a need for some kind of hardware support for representing your physical keyboard within VR.However, people tend to be used to their keyboards and somewhat unwilling to change them. To aid adoption, what about a system where you can bring your keyboard into VR, maintain motion tracking, and have a 3D-model custom-generated?Here's vaguely how it would work off the top of my head:You purchase an IR camera, and some IR markers. The markers go onto the centre of the 'Esc' key, the centre of the 'LCtrl' key, the centre of the '-' key on the numpad (or the right-hand side of the Backspace key if you're using a short keyboard), and the bottom of the 'Enter' key on the numpad (or the centre of RCtrl on a short keyboard).Then you somehow input a reasonably high-resolution (i.e. not a webcam photo) image of the keyboard, top-down, into the software. It detects the position and sizes of all the keys. It then brings you into a VR demo where you fine-tune the keyboard height, and the key height. After that, you should be done - a 3D model of the keyboard can be generated, and its position tracked in realtime.Obviously that exact solution wouldn't be how it works, but it would be a decent starting point, and illustrates the idea. The main plus-side is it would be cheap - basically just the cost of the camera and a few IR LEDs, and that people can bring their own keyboard. The down-side is it would require some setup, so it would alienate a lot of casual users. But to be honest, I think that most casual users aren't going to be using their keyboard all that much in VR - it's going to be more for people who want to use a VR-based OS or other productivity-type things in VR, and these people tend to be savvy enough to run a configuration utility for their keyboard.A lot of the fancy functions you talked about are lost, but for those kinds of functions you might be talking about building $200 keyboards, which is going to really limit the number of people who are willing to adopt a technology like this....That being said, if you were making a kit that allows people to setup the system with their own keyboard, it would be super easy to just build your own keyboard, have a nice textured 3D model already built for it, have the IR points built into the keyboard body, and sell it as a complete package. It might cost twice as much (so hypothetically, $120 rather than $60), but still affordable, and considerably easier for people who are willing to switch keyboards for VR.I think you should totally give it a shot - I would back it. ;)

lol.At that price, most people would prefer just to buy a new keyboard for VR.

In most use cases the position of the keyboard is fixed relative to the tracking camera so you know where it is without tracking (just an initial calibration). The real problem is that you don't know where your hands and fingers are.

"renderingpipeline" wrote:In most use cases the position of the keyboard is fixed relative to the tracking camera so you know where it is without tracking (just an initial calibration). The real problem is that you don't know where your hands and fingers are.Well, even if you know where your hand are, if you don't SEE the keyboard , its not natural to find it.

For those with peripherals that can track in 3D space, like a STEM pack:I expect software that will allow you to use the tracker to outline or trace a physical item, to give it a spatial size and reference point for representation in VR. Of course, after the tracing, the tracker would have to be attached to the unit if you would like it to be anything other than stationary, but again, in a seated environment, as most VR seems like it's going to be for home usage, spare trackers should be available. (I'll have a few!)(3D trackers are going to give inanimate objects life in this fashion)I would not be surprised if we see 3D models designed by the manufacturers for keyboards and peripherals to help gain more of a foothold in the VR market.

[Keyboard for VR] KickStarter new Idea. | Meta Community Forums

15 Replies

mptp
Explorer
12 years ago
ControlVR doesn't suffer from drift since it has an external camera tracking the forward-kinematics centre point. And from what I understand the latency for the system is sub-50ms, since IMUs require very little computation to turn sensor output into a usable quarternion.
The problem with just using a stem pack or something similar for the keyboard position is you still need the keyboard layout to match your keyboard layout perfectly. Otherwise you'll keep missing keys since everything will be just a little bit off.
conall88
Honored Guest
12 years ago
wouldn't some kind of IR tags that can be position around the edges of a keyboard solve things?

I mean the keyboard won't be moving much; it shouldn't cause problems.
mptp
Explorer
12 years ago
Yeah but then you also need a whole camera just to track the keyboard position, which is both a pain to set up and place on your desk, and ups the cost significantly.

I just had another idea on how this could be accomplished. It assumes good finger tracking, but bear with me:
In calibration (and you only need to do this once), which you do without the Rift on, you carefully press each key on the keyboard with your index finger, in sequence. This would take maybe 5 minutes. The software records the position of the point of your finger at each key, and builds a 3D model of the keyboard. This is stored for any VR-application to access.
Then, at any point in any experience, you can press some key-combination while wearing the gloves, say it's left-hand: LCTRL+A, right-hand: RCTRL+L, to recenter the keyboard. Since these keys would be enough to position the keyboard in all three dimensions, it would be easy to configure at any time. Even if you bumped your keyboard, you just feel with your fingertips until you find the keys to recenter it, and you're good to go again.

Only downside is without a $300+ finger-tracking solution, this is totally impossible. Hopefully Dexmo will help us out here. ;)
Bailey16
Honored Guest
12 years ago
I'd buy one of those.. awesome idea :3 :!:
nuB
Honored Guest
12 years ago
Once again, given a single tracking device, any object can be spatially 'traced' and placed into VR space and tracked.

Simply trace the outline/dimensions of a unit, and place tracker on device when done.

Of course you will need a visual model to represent your real world object, but that is easily solved, and doesn't relate directly to the problem at hand.

Forum Discussion

🚨 This forum is archived and read-only. To submit a forum post, please visit our new Developer Forum. 🚨

[Keyboard for VR] KickStarter new Idea.

15 Replies

Quick Links

Other Meta Support

Related Content

Quick idea

Virtual Keyboard

Arabic keyboard layout for Meta Horizon OS virtual keyboard

[Spatial SDK] Virtual keyboard is not shown.

Issues with the Keyboard overlay