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Positional tracking with S7 ?

motorsep
Rising Star
So, is positional tracking coming to gear VR with Galaxy S7 ?
20 REPLIES 20

leftler
Protege
The GearVR uses no internal sensors in the phone currently. I doubt they will start for the S7.

Also I don't think you can do accurate positional tracking from the "inside out" (without using a external camera) with the hardware that is in the GearVR. We won't know if the S7 hardware will be able to do it either till they announce the official specs on February 21st (but I doubt that it will).

motorsep
Rising Star
As I recall Carmack said inside out tracking is possible given enough processing power. New SoC is rumored to have that capacity. That's why I am wondering.

leftler
Protege
If that was all it needed then the Rift would not need a external camera for positional tracking as you have magnitudes more processing power available via the connected PC in comparison to any phone.

HomerS66
Expert Protege
Yes it's very likely that the S7 can do positional tracking, maybe not as good as an external camera can do like with the Rift, but the HVX/dsp processor included in the S820 is great for computer vision, Carmack already confirmed that and some of his recent tweets, hinted that he is working again on computer vision.

Combined with the new 12MP camera of the S7, which likely has improved in speed aswell, maybe up to 240fps now, might be fast enough to deliver good data.

But if positonal tracking will be already ready for the S7 or rather with the Note 6 and be back unlocked for the S7 aswell, is the question.

mduffor
Protege
Carmack has also pointed out that the problem with inside-out positional tracking is that you are running the camera and performing image recognition processing on it. This leads to excess heat and battery drain that makes it tough for mobile. However even if you had an external camera that broadcast the detected Constellation positions over bluetooth or wifi, you'd have lag that would be undesirable. Probably a future solution to positional tracking will need to be built into the headset and possibly run off its own battery or USB power from the phone, but I wouldn't expect anything to hit the market for a year or more.

motorsep
Rising Star
"mduffor" wrote:
Carmack has also pointed out that the problem with inside-out positional tracking is that you are running the camera and performing image recognition processing on it. This leads to excess heat and battery drain that makes it tough for mobile. However even if you had an external camera that broadcast the detected Constellation positions over bluetooth or wifi, you'd have lag that would be undesirable. Probably a future solution to positional tracking will need to be built into the headset and possibly run off its own battery or USB power from the phone, but I wouldn't expect anything to hit the market for a year or more.


He was talking about Note 4 / S6.

jyoun
Explorer
Has anyone hacked together positional tracking with the current gear? Seems like they'd at least be able to get a rough wireframe demo working.

I think the problem with it coming to S7 is that people will be expecting the graphics to be much greater, and if they suddenly did positional tracking that might mean graphics stay the same or even get scaled back. I'm guessing they won't want to make it an optional thing that only some games/apps use, as that inconsistency will throw off users. Sitting/standing experiences would be a good first target, then room-scale for S8/future. I doubt they'll do wide open outdoor sized areas anytime soon, not just for legal reasons but also because it'll be a very niche thing.







http://vrfocus.com/archives/27871/take- ... th-vrtraq/
Big PC, all the headsets, now using Quest 3

jyoun
Explorer
Is that first video using some additional hardware on the back of that helmet? I was assuming the conversation was about inside-out-positional camera-based tracking, but these solutions would of course work as well. Cool stuff, especially the skateboarding one