Features and limits of Half- dome: some constructive critiques.
Current Oculus Half- dome prototype born with native flaws. The well known difficulty of comprehension and analisis of the human gaze, relevated through the eye- tracker hardware, could be not the unique issue of Half- dome. The Half- dome does not expose the type of eye tracker hardware used by Oculus developers. Yes, these informations are covered by the Industrial Secret but this secret can not cover the fact that the eye- tracker hardware involved in the Half- dome development is a mobile one. Yes, the improvements both in mechanical design and in the field of view using also the Eye- tracker is Really Interesting, and yes the Eye- tracker ist a marvellous tool for the analisis of eyes movements but it’s limits currently can not be overpassed. That is why some scientific papers have well clear ideas about this field. 1- The signal loss could afflict portable eye tracker solutions like the eye tribe one. The consequence could be the failure to reliably locate a participant’s eyes during the course of the task. 2- The eye-tracking equipment can miss eye movement when there are large field-of-view areas. 3- The eye-tracker hardware in two-dimensional fields within immediate proximity (such as when viewing a computer screen or looking at a supermarket shelf display) may be more reliable. In Oculus Half- dome we’re not talking about two- dimensional fields but certainly we’re talking about immediate proximity. 4- The portable eye- tracker hardware could be also afflicted by specific issues as the lack of accuracy of kinematics capture. 5- The difficulty to interpret the eye- tracker data like the gaze. This could lead to difficulties to analyse the possible issues that one day could Emerge from the Human- Computer Interaction, between the the user’s eye, his brain and the Oculus head- set. The consequence could be the uncertainty of management and solution of the incoming or emerging human- computer interaction issues. Especially with large fiield-of-view the eye tracker hardware could miss the eye movement. This may bring the Oculus staff to atribute some inconsistencies between the software output (what is seen by the user in the Head Set), the Half- dome head set hardware and the User’s eye. This in turn could make difficult the interpretation of the Human Computer Interaction flaws. At this moment Oculus team has revealed only a video where there are no scientific data taken from a structured video- analisis, of the the interaction between the users and the Half- Dome Head Mounted Display. There are no scientific data of the consequences of this Human Computer Interaction between Half- dome and the behaviour of the user. In conclusion there is a relatively high probability that Half- dome team and their marvellous late prototype will have to face difficult times. Certainly the lack of interaction of the Oculus staff with the freelance community of scientific collaborators will have to be changed. If the Oculus Company’s targets are to move up the new challenges of the new incoming steps of Virtual Reality, something in the management of the scientific research and development will have to be changed. We will see how they will decide to face this and which strategies they will adopt. Author: Nicolò Zago
Is it possible to develop Oculus VR in Unity without Oculus hardware?
Hi, Oculus developers. Could you please help me? I am new here. Now, I want to develop Oculus VR app with Unity. But I don't have Oculus hardware. Nothing and No experience! So if it is possible to develop without hardware, please give me your advice. And if it is impossible, what is needed for Oculus VR development? Hope to hear from you. Cheers. K.
