Positional tracking already!

Well, the low-latency part is harder than it sounds.

Kinect's latency can be upwards of 350 ms, and a typical PC webcam has framerates which are often lower than 30 fps (framerate and latency aren't tied together directly, but the latency is guaranteed to be at least equal to the framerate, meaning 30 fps has at least 33 ms latency + whatever the code for it requires.)

That being said, I've gotten fairly decent webcams for the equivalent of less than $10, so as a lowest common denominator solution it's pretty good, but in terms of 'low latency', I'd call it more in the realms of wishful thinking.

But by all means, if you can prove me wrong, I'd love to see it... XD - Because it would be a cheap solution, if nothing else.

http://people.csail.mit.edu/rywang/hand/

This is what I was referring to but the comment, was it has ~100ms latency.

So in conjunction with coding, it would probably be closer to ~150ms. I will work on this concept more at work.

Regards,
Mike

That's not too bad.

But clearly that won't do for head-tracking, which is mostly what this thread was originally about.

The rift's head-tracking is already noticable to people, and that has an overall latency (including the task of rendering an image to the display and showing it) in the region of 20-50 ms.

100 would be really bad for head tracking...

There is NO point in having anything wireless unless everything is wireless, and that CAN'T happen now because of latency, just imagine the latency induced by sending the video over wireless!!! Not to mention the radiation! ;)

So we need hydra with additional cable head sensor. I know razer or sixense is working on this, but what is oculus doing?

And since they NEED to cooperate on this it's really really bad that they haven't issued a joint statement, because this could mean they are competing/in conflict over this.

"rupy" wrote:
There is NO point in having anything wireless unless everything is wireless

I disagree. A single wire to the Rift is fairly workable, but dealing with that along with the two wires to each Hydra controller pretty much means you need a 'spotter' to make sure you aren't about to tangle yourself up and/or pull expensive hardware off the desk.

As for collaboration: Oculus are working on positional tracking, but they haven't revealed any partners. Sixense aren't the only game in town when it comes to magnetic tracking, and there are all sorts of other tracking technologies (chirped ultrasound, outside-in and inside-out cameras, etc) from many different companies that just jumping on one without doing the research would be premature.

The hydra works, it worked over a year ago, to not have a simple little tiny modification for head strap sensor added to it during that year of knowing VR was coming back is just tragic. We need a better control scheme! Just wished oculus/sixense could shed some light on what their plans are so we know what to prepare for... so we don't waste money on hardware that has to be replaced!

Edit: You could solve the cable mess by having one cable from the hydra base to the head sensor (which should be attached "behind" the head as low as possible on the rift headstrap) and then two cables to each hand from that! Add some tape to bind the rift and hydra cables (that should be the same length btw!) and you are good to go!

Even better if a torso sensor makes sense you derive the head and hand cables from that! I can't wrap my head around what a torso sensor would imply, maybe that's why the whole thing is delayed BTW?!

"rupy" wrote:


Edit: You could solve the cable mess by having one cable from the hydra base to the head sensor (which should be attached "behind" the head as low as possible on the rift headstrap) and then two cables to each hand from that! Add some tape to bind the rift and hydra cables (that should be the same length btw!) and you are good to go!

That's not too far removed from the hydra design as-is. Both controllers have about 2 feet of separate cable, which then merges and goes on as a single cable to the base station...

Actually, thinking about it, I wonder what the wiring for the controller cable is like... If they share any kind of data communication, replacing the controllers with something that adds a 3rd (or even 4th) sensor would be easy.
(4 controllers per base station is what the SDK supports...).
Of course, knowing our luck, the socket on the base station is wired specifically for data from 2 controllers; no more, no less... XD

"KuraIthys" wrote:

That's not too far removed from the hydra design as-is. Both controllers have about 2 feet of separate cable, which then merges and goes on as a single cable to the base station...

Definitely more than 2 feet! I can comfortably hold both controllers with my 30-inch arms 100% outstretched to the sides. However, I did have to slide that little thingy (where the two separate cables meet) down as far as it would go to give me that length.

I wonder if tbowren ever took his machine back to his workplace to have his coworkers try the Rift again with positional-headtracking from the Rift? Would love to know whether it indeed helped everyone's experience with it.

Not having a Rift myself yet, I wanted to play around with this stuff too after seeing what tbowren did, and made this demo if anyone wants to try it out: viewtopic.php?f=42&t=490 :)

"drash" wrote:

"KuraIthys" wrote:

That's not too far removed from the hydra design as-is. Both controllers have about 2 feet of separate cable, which then merges and goes on as a single cable to the base station...

Definitely more than 2 feet! I can comfortably hold both controllers with my 30-inch arms 100% outstretched to the sides. However, I did have to slide that little thingy (where the two separate cables meet) down as far as it would go to give me that length.

Bit nitpicky there about an approximate figure aren't you? XD - I did that by a very rough visual estimation. And yes, you do have to move that slider. (why is that even there anyway? XD), but the point I was making is that the cables merge together at some point.

Also... 2 feet of cable for each controller makes a 4 foot span.

But... Fine. I'll give you an exact measure if you like... XD

As measured on mine, the distance between where the cables merge, and where it attaches to the controller is 89 cm, or 35 inches, which is just short of 3 feet.

Excuse me for not using a tape measure the first time... :roll:

And before you say anything, that means you can have your hands up to 178 cm (5'10") apart.

I only give imperial measurements as a courtesy anyway... So, please, do excuse my lousy ability to estimate distances in feet... XD

Sorry for coming off nitpicky! Your estimate and the actual measurement were the difference between an unusble Hydra and a usable one, so I wanted to be sure no one got the wrong idea about my favorite input method these days, :)