The Next Major Step for Oculus VR: Peripheral Vision Display

I've ran my own Epilepsy Simulator that would flash random colors, decreased frequency down to 1-1.5 Hz (so that I could think, i.e. analyze and mentally estabilish, which color it was before it changes) and then just turned my sight away as far as I could while still seeing the monitor. As the colors flashes, I can always tell which color it is. The app only displays four colors (RGBK), but simple experimentation with GIMP editor shown that my retina is capable of noticing and effeciently distinguishing far more sublte color changes.

"raidho36" wrote:
I've ran my own Epilepsy Simulator that would flash random colors, decreased frequency down to 1-1.5 Hz (so that I could think, i.e. analyze and mentally estabilish, which color it was before it changes) and then just turned my sight away as far as I could while still seeing the monitor. As the colors flashes, I can always tell which color it is. The app only displays four colors (RGBK), but simple experimentation with GIMP editor shown that my retina is capable of noticing and effeciently distinguishing far more sublte color changes.

You're not a freak of nature, your experiments sound like they might have control flaws :P

The thing is, while cone cells are spread thin outside of macula, they're still present across entire retina, so peripheral is NOT colorblind, and by no means it's perceived anywhat fainter. But it is true that it has significantly lower color resolution - not that 5000 cells per millimeter squared is that little anyway.

"jherico" wrote:
No, not really. Read Michael Abrash's presentation The target for 2015 hardware he discusses is 110 degrees, which the Rift comes pretty close to already.

There's a whole list of areas for improvement for a commercial kit that Oculus is better off focusing on, rather than trying to push the boundaries on FOV, and even among the things they haven't covered, I think the biggest impediment to mass market adoption is figuring out how to hook up the Rift and making it available to applications without it also creating unusable space on your desktop (or requiring you to clone monitors, which reduces FPS overall).

True, with the FOV as it is now you never lose the sense that you've got something blocking your extreme peripheral vision, but that doesn't actually reduce the sense of presence. People who wear goggles and styles of glasses that include side blinders don't feel like they're looking at a virtual world as a result.

Is the 110-degree field of vision mentioned in the Valve presentation the horizental or the diagonal? They did not mention this. I suppose it is the horizontal FOV (which is 90 degree for the DK1). Any more clarification on this point?

"Nowry" wrote:

Is the 110-degree field of vision mentioned in the Valve presentation the horizental or the diagonal? They did not mention this. I suppose it is the horizontal FOV (which is 90 degree for the DK1). Any more clarification on this point?

I'm fairly certain it's horizontal. The horizontal FOV for the DK1 is more than 90 degrees, though how much of the actual FOV you can perceive depends on how far your eyes are from the surface of the lenses (eye relief) and how close to the center of the lenses they are (depends on IPD).

I think the next major step in head mounted displays will be flexable OLED panels as displayed here: http://www.oled-info.com/lg-display-starts-6-flexible-oled-mass-production-products-expected-2014

Once the cost of those displays comes down significantly, there will be a surge in a much more "elegant" design of the HMD, ala: Jordi La'Forge off of ST:TNG, albeit, a bit bigger :)

"saviornt" wrote:
I think the next major step in head mounted displays will be flexable OLED panels as displayed here: http://www.oled-info.com/lg-display-starts-6-flexible-oled-mass-production-products-expected-2014

Once the cost of those displays comes down significantly, there will be a surge in a much more "elegant" design of the HMD, ala: Jordi La'Forge off of ST:TNG, albeit, a bit bigger :)

no... no... NO...

Flexible display panels are a solution in desperate need of a problem. They'll probably be handy for making more durable electronics at some point, but certainly not until all the rest of your cellphone is also flexible. Even then, the screen is going to be extremely fragile and vulnerable to damage unless it's covered by a hard surface such as glass, so it's basically a non-starter.

They would be a disaster for HMDs that use radially symmetrical lenses (like the Rift). The radial symmetry in the lenses means that you want to maintain a constant distance between the lens and the panel for a given theta (angle between the lens axis and the direction you're looking). This doesn't work with a flexible panel if you bend it. Suddenly the distance between the panel and the lens changes depending on whether you're looking up or to the left. Look 30 degrees to the left and the panel surface is closer because of the curvature. Look 30 degrees up and the panel is the same distance as it was on an uncurved panel.

The only way to solve that would be to make a panel which can bend in two dimensions. As an exercise, try taking a piece of paper and bending (without introducing folds) it in such a way that it can hold water. Without cutting or folding the paper, it's impossible.

Further, curving the display doesn't actually gain you anything. The limiting factor to the field of view is the lens, not the display. Sure, the display being slightly bigger might take some work of the lens, but ultimately the greatest angle you're going to be able to see is determined by how far off the lens axis you can look and still be looking through the lens itself. No amount of screen curvature is going to change that.

All of that assumes that using a curved display would use the same HMD design framework. As you can't put a round peg into a square hole, using a curved display on the current design just wouldn't work, at all.

And umm, your thought experiment about water and paper is wrong. Since paper is porous (paper isn't actually smooth, it's quite jagged actually), water can "stick" to it; so as long as it is parallel with the center of the earth for gravitational forces, the water wouldn't "fall off". Same deal for glass too - that's the reason you need wiper blades, is because water sticks to the glass. Although, there have been some universities that have come up with methodologies to produce smooth surfaces. In those cases, water will pour off of them no matter what since its a liquid. Also, if you put both of those surfaces together, it is EXTREMELY hard to get them apart w/o breaking them.

But now i'm just rambling, so there :oops:

Palmer was reviewing Wide5's 150° HMD at MTBS3D and explaining just how much better 150° is at immersion compared to 90°.

So yeah, ultra low resolution (think 32x32) could be rendered separately and pushed to those huge LEDs that would be positioned in periphery.

wouldn't full dive be waaaaaaay better i have a rough theory on how it could be developed so don't tell me it will take 10+ years to come true.
I'll write my theory incase anyone wants to read it. So here it is

Take an EEG, used to measure electrical impulses of the brain. If you would use a tech like that to send signals back as well as receive them, while at the same time diverting them into the PC (Player Character) rather than into a persons real body, then there is the full dive system right there. The only problem would be how to calibrate it all, but with the advanced tech we have, I have no doubt that it could be done.