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andywhiteley
Up and Coming
August 23, 2014

Oculus Lens Improvements

Received the Oculus DK2 this week and have been absolutely blown away by it.
The best experience has been with Elite: Dangerous and Half Life2, the immersion is spot on.
Motion sickness is a problem at first but I slowly introduced myself into it. First 5 then 10 and 20 minutes etc

There are 3 very noticeable shortfalls however to the DK2.
1. The chromatic aberration round the outside of the lenses, where you see red, green and blue separation and blur.
2. The screen door effect where you can see pixels.
3. The juddering effect even at a refresh rate of 75.

I found that the B lenses are best for me with less chromatic aberration.
I was wondering what type and quality of lenses are in the Oculus?
SLR cameras obviously take a much better picture with high quality lenses.
Higher quality lenses would get rid of the chromatic aberration seen on the current Oculus.
If it comes down to consumer costing, an upgraded high quality lens package could be offered to hardcore users.

Let me know your thoughts.
Andy.

    29 replies

    Boardy1976
    Up and Coming
    August 23, 2014
    I havent tried the B lenses, but I know what you mean about it bluring around the edges. Somthing that does need sorting for the consumer version.
    andywhiteleyAuthor
    Up and Coming
    August 23, 2014
    Not sure how good the Oculus Lenses are or what they're made of. Plastic? Glass?

    Lenses are one of the most important aspect of producing imagery, be it SLR or Film cameras.
    A camera could have the best sensor technology, but without great lenses you're not going to gain maximum potential.

    High quality Carl Zeiss lenses would produce excellent results on the Oculus, but the cost?
    bolle
    Participant
    August 23, 2014
    Yeah I also hate those chromatic abberations. I don't really understand why OculusVR is not handing out better achromat lenses (which are lenses with 2 or 3 layers out of different glasses which compensate the chromatic abberations)

    Probably a cost issue. Maybe someone could sell lenses for the device seperately, but the price would be three digit at least I'm afraid.
    If you haven't tried it out already - get Elite!
    andywhiteleyAuthor
    Up and Coming
    August 23, 2014
    I'd be prepared to pay for good quality lenses if they helped to reduce the distortion.
    andywhiteleyAuthor
    Up and Coming
    August 23, 2014
    Just thinking where I could get hold of a pair of better quality lenses to mod the Oculus, binoculars maybe?
    Could then create lens cups in 3D and print them out on a 3D Printer.
    ElectricMucus
    Up and Coming
    August 23, 2014
    "andywhiteley" wrote:
    Just thinking where I could get hold of a pair of better quality lenses to mod the Oculus, binoculars maybe?
    Could then create lens cups in 3D and print them out on a 3D Printer.

    You'd need ones with a fairly short focal distance. The lenses in binoculars won't be that short I think.
    Two strong magnifying glasses should do. But I'd only buy lenses where I know the focal distance and not having it figured out by try and error.
    andywhiteleyAuthor
    Up and Coming
    August 23, 2014
    Just downloaded a screenshot from Elite: Dangerous to the iPhone 5s.
    As you can see from the images, there is a lot less screen door with the Retina 1136 x 640 screen

    Although:
    Oculus DK2 uses Samsung Galaxy Note 3 screen which is 1080 x 1920 at 386 ppi
    iPhone 5s Retina screen is only 640 x 1136 at 326 ppi

    So maybe it's because of the pixel layout?




    ElectricMucus
    Up and Coming
    August 23, 2014
    The iphone screen has more sub-pixels per inch, yes. But that's beating a dead horse.
    andywhiteleyAuthor
    Up and Coming
    August 23, 2014
    I thought the iPhone 5s has less ppi than the Samsung at 326 ppi vs 386 pip but the screen door effect seems less prominent on the iPhone.
    ElectricMucus
    Up and Coming
    August 23, 2014
    The iphone display has three sub-pixels per pixel making it a 326*3^0.5=564.65 sppi "sub pixel per inch" display and the galaxy note screen has two sub-pixels per pixel making it a 386*2^0.5=545.89 sppi screen.
    The square root is because the pixel is regarded as an area and the "per inch" measure is a scalar quantity.
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