SDK 0.3 preview?

Our project is on hold waiting for the SDK 0.3 and we would love to have some news about when it's going to be released.

I agree with that, it's been some time since you announced a new version of the SDK, and we think that it may not be worth developping anything now using the current version if they will be a lot of changes in the API.

The only waste of time with starting now is in implementing the distortion shader and head-neck model, which won't be needed in the next SDK. The actual stereo rendering part won't change, just use the provided eye and projection matrices and when you update they will continue to work properly.

The biggest change in the next SDK will be a replacement for the DX/OpenGL Present call, which should just be a one line code change. That one call will handle all of the distortion, display timing, and time-warping.

There may be other code differences. According to the preview slides the next sdk is written in C with C++ helpers instead of pure C++.

But it's still pretty minor, code wise. There's still a lot of prototyping that can be done with the current sdk even without position tracking and timewarping.

"kojack" wrote:
There may be other code differences. According to the preview slides the next sdk is written in C with C++ helpers instead of pure C++.

I suspect it's far more likely that they're simply putting a C interface on top of the existing C++ codebase

The driver library might be C++, but the C interface sits on top of that and then the C++ helpers sit on top of the C interface.

"kojack" wrote:

The driver library might be C++, but the C interface sits on top of that and then the C++ helpers sit on top of the C interface.

That's interesting. I wonder where they're planning on putting the Sensor Fusion. The most obvious place would be the OVR Service.

Bah! I wish they'd just release the updated core SDK and do more incremental improvement. It's frustrating being blocked on working on some sections of the book because I know they're going to be impacted by API changes.

The new preview SDK is coming very soon.

It is a significant change from the old API, however it shouldn't take too long to update your project.

More news to come. Thanks.

Thanks for the heads up, Cyber.

The slightly worrying thing: OVR Service?
I hope the rift isn't going to require installation to work. My college doesn't give installation rights to staff or students. For example, I can't use my 3d connexion devices, kinect or novint falcon on the classroom computers because I'm not allowed to install drivers. I need to use my own laptop or surface pro 2 for stuff like that.
(Luckily my laptop kicks ass, so I don't mind, but it limits students)