Vive Tracker

[Jan Ciger]

Hello (and Happy New Year),

It seems Valve is going to release a standalone tracking attachment so that we can build our own props to be tracked through the Lighthouse system:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a24617/vive-tracker-puck-ces-2017/

https://twitter.com/ID_R_McGregor/status/816828274563252224

Alan Yates from Valve has confirmed that both the mechanical and electrical specs for the interface will be published (connecting buttons, for ex), permitting integrating this into own props. The only problem is its size 4" (~ 10cm) radius - and each of these needs its own receiving USB dongle, apparently :(

Regards,

J.

[Maxim Lysak]

Happy New Year everyone!

Additionally to the tracker they announced "Deluxe audio strap" which looks pretty much like semi-rigid Rift strap, also with headphones: https://blog.vive.com/us/2017/01/04/vive-ces-2017/

Cheers,

Maxim

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[Jan Ciger]

On 05/01/17 11:02, Maxim Lysak wrote:
> Happy New Year everyone!
> Additionally to the tracker they announced "Deluxe audio strap" which
> looks pretty much like semi-rigid Rift strap, also with
> headphones: https://blog.vive.com/us/2017/01/04/vive-ces-2017/
>
> Cheers,
> Maxim
>

Interesting, not a bad idea. I wonder how will Oculus respond to that.

J.

[TobyCWood]

Sorry... don't mean to be nit picky here...
It's not Valve... Valve is the sw gaming producer behind Steam. HTC (the HW maker of the Vive) is producing the tracker...and the new headphone strap both of which I hope to see tomorrow while at CES in Las Vegas. There's also supposed to be a vr capable capture camera as well as some unannounced wireless solutions.(besides the 2 we already know about) ... not holding my breath on either of those. HTC ... not Valve/Steam... also announced a Netflix like service to stream VR content.

I have not been to the VR/AR/gaming area yet, only the 3d printing area, wearables and robotics so far... but I'm seeing the HTC Vive everywhere! A 3D capture device maker, a med training system, etc... seems the Vive is the IN thing this year. Lots of companies are using VR in tandem with whatever their actual product is. No sign of a rift yet. By the way.... we are hearing that they are giving away 100 trackers to developers and that there are booths with demo objects with trackers attached... like baseball bats, golf clubs and other family room smashing capable things. VR is the BFD for CES2017.

I'll post a report here tomorrow night about what I find.

[Jan Ciger]

Hello Toby,

On 06/01/17 06:15, TobyCWood wrote:
> Sorry... don't mean to be nit picky here... It's not Valve... Valve
> is the sw gaming producer behind Steam. HTC (the HW maker of the
> Vive) is producing the tracker...

Not to be meta nit picky here, but :)

HTC is going to be selling it, but it has been Valve engineers who built
it, like Alan Yates. Just has a message from him explaining why each
Tracker needs its own dongle - the Nordic radio chipset is apparently
too slow "in several ways" to handle multiple of them :(

> and the new headphone strap both of
> which I hope to see tomorrow while at CES in Las Vegas. There's also
> supposed to be a vr capable capture camera as well as some
> unannounced wireless solutions.(besides the 2 we already know about)
> ... not holding my breath on either of those. HTC ... not
> Valve/Steam... also announced a Netflix like service to stream VR
> content.

I am sure that there will be a ton of similar things from others too.
Companies are all eager to turn VR into another souped up TV so that
they can sell us "content" (and ads).

>
> I have not been to the VR/AR/gaming area yet, only the 3d printing
> area, wearables and robotics so far... but I'm seeing the HTC Vive
> everywhere! A 3D capture device maker, a med training system, etc...
> seems the Vive is the IN thing this year. Lots of companies are using
> VR in tandem with whatever their actual product is.

Doesn't surprise me in the slightest, as Valve has been fairly
forthcoming with both the technical information needed to integrate Vive
into custom systems and also been on the market for a while, so custom
apps like that had time to emerge. They are also explicitly targeting
the professional markets, unlike Oculus.

> No sign of a rift
> yet.

Rift is not really interesting unless you have Touch - and Touch has
arrived too late in December for 3rdparty applications using it to
appear before CES. Most of these companies likely didn't have early
access to the hardware neither as they are not game developers. Next
year you will probably see some.

> By the way.... we are hearing that they are giving away 100
> trackers to developers and that there are booths with demo objects
> with trackers attached... like baseball bats, golf clubs and other
> family room smashing capable things. VR is the BFD for CES2017.
>
> I'll post a report here tomorrow night about what I find.

Cool, looking forward to it.

I have seen some video of gun/sword like thing already (turn the barrel
90deg and it is a sword, turn it back and you have a gun) with the
Tracker attached at the end, but I would have been *very* hesitant to
swing that thing around. It looked really "top heavy" and fragile, I
would fear that the Tracker will fly off or I smash it into something.

Regards,

J.

[TobyCWood]

i have zero insights into the workings of these companies, but it seems a bit weird that a HW manufacturer (HTC) is selling HW developed by a SW company (Valve). What about the rest of the Vive system? Is the Vive developed by Valve and simply produced by HTC? Is HTC simply licensing designs?

HTC does not have a booth. Unfortunately they only have a hospitality suite which requires an invite and since I got none I got zero exposure to their announced stuff... which kinda sucks. However, there were Vive based and Rift based demos everywhere. I finally got a chance to try a Rift and I have to agree with many of the blogged comparisons.... it's lighter, fits better, has a very slightly noticeably cleaner image, but in my experience did not seem as responsive to my head movement. No touch controllers anywhere. All the demos I got to try were sit downs not full room... every experience I tried sucked. I got to try a backpack based Vive which had a full room setup, yet did not take advantage of it. They had their own game which was a mountain climbing game. I would have liked to try Raw Data on it, but no. Test the utility of the untethered backpack? NOT. However, the system weighed 2lbs, SSD, 1070, i7, 16gb...$2000. Quite a bit more then a home built, but comparable to a commercial gaming PC.
There was a Chinese producer of some large moving platforms that provided ZERO added value to the experience.
Also one which used a moving chair... it sucked too. It's like these guys seem to think it will work like a 6DOFsystem. It doesn't. Almost every big car manufacturer had a VR based experience to show off their concept designs. Frankly I just do not get it. VR in this way is narrowcasting. One pai of eyes at a time. It seems to me you would want to get as many eyeballs as possible. A good idea would be to publish these on Steam, but I guess suits do not understand that.
I also tried some other systems... One headset from Sony...MEH... the PSVR had a very very long line so I bailed on it since I have already tried a couple of games on one. There was one based on a smartphone which did not work at all... it was like looking through a pipe.
Bottom line, if one was to come to CES thinking they got a good taste of VR the realty is they didn't.

[TobyCWood]

Just sniffed around and per wiki it seems there's a fairly gray line between HTC and Valve.... at least publicly.

On a different subject,,,
I also found an interesting solution today at CES for a higher res 3D capture with LiDAR. Better then primesense based or photogrammetry. I found the Velodyn booth today and found out they have a very nice capture solution which can be used to make a very hi res pointcloud. Combine it with a camera sourced image for coloring and the result is very clean. Much better then Google Earth VR and if I integrate it myself it won't cost more then a new car. I'll be looking into that when I get back.

[TobyCWood]

Another thing I saw which demonstrates my disappointment in the VR experiences I had was at the Stern booth. These guys make pinball machines. They were using the Rift to show their virtual pinball games. I got to play it for awhile and it is just like actually standing there and looking at a real pinball machine.... but.... why?!? The VR aspect of it was novel but added nothing at all to the game. They could have let he player zoom down into the machine, allow teleporting and then slow down the speed... now that would be interesting!

[Jan Ciger]

On Sun, Jan 8, 2017 at 1:02 AM, TobyCWood <andyc...@gmail.com> wrote:

i have zero insights into the workings of these companies, but it seems a bit weird that a HW manufacturer (HTC) is selling HW developed by a SW company (Valve). What about the rest of the Vive system? Is the Vive developed by Valve and simply produced by HTC? Is HTC simply licensing designs?

Valve has designed the entire system, Alan Yates has been the main person behind the Lighthouse tracking system and most of the HMD too. Valve is not only a software company, they have quite a few hw products too, such the game controller, the Steam Machines, etc. They have partnered with HTC to have it manufactured and distributed, because Valve doesn't have its own manufacturing capacities and typically contracts these things out.

No touch controllers anywhere. All the demos I got to try were sit downs not full room... every experience I tried sucked.

That's really unfortunate. However, as I said, the Touch has arrived too late to be able to show up at CES, with the holidays and all that. I have it, it does work quite well, but it isn't a miracle neither. For me it is quite on par with the Vive wands, perhaps the ergonomy is a little better. 

 

I got to try a backpack based Vive which had a full room setup, yet did not take advantage of it. They had their own game which was a mountain climbing game. I would have liked to try Raw Data on it, but no. Test the utility of the untethered backpack? NOT.

*facepalm* Well, that's a typical corporate demo ... 

 

There was a Chinese producer of some large moving platforms that provided ZERO added value to the experience.
Also one which used a moving chair... it sucked too. It's like these guys seem to think it will work like a 6DOFsystem. It doesn't.

Oops. 

 

Almost every big car manufacturer had a VR based experience to show off their concept designs. Frankly I just do not get it. VR in this way is narrowcasting. One pai of eyes at a time. It seems to me you would want to get as many eyeballs as possible. A good idea would be to publish these on Steam, but I guess suits do not understand that.

I think it is driven by the "jump on the bandwagon" mentality of the marketing people. "Competitor X is doing it, we have to do it too because this is the next big thing! We must look like we are doing high-tech innovation!" Who cares that it makes no sense. Few years ago the same was happening with 3D TVs, everyone was doing demos on a stereoscopic television. Then AR on tablets and smartphones - everyone had an "app" with their product floating on top of a magazine or some flyer. Then the IoT bandwagon with "smart toasters", Facebook in cars and similar garbage. Etc. 

 

I also tried some other systems... One headset from Sony...MEH... the PSVR had a very very long line so I bailed on it since I have already tried a couple of games on one. There was one based on a smartphone which did not work at all... it was like looking through a pipe.
Bottom line, if one was to come to CES thinking they got a good taste of VR the realty is they didn't.

CES is mainly a consumer electronics oriented tradeshow - so things like TVs, radios, hi-fi, home appliances. The computer related stuff is only a comparably small part of it (used to be a lot bigger before) and VR is even smaller bit of that. if you want VR you probably need to go to a more specialized show. But it is sad to see companies blowing so much money for stands and presence there and not even bothering with preparation of a somewhat sensible demo. Sadly this is common. 

Also many manufacturers are living in their own world or "bubble", completely disconnected from what is on the market and what the customer actually needs. Not a long time ago I have been present to a private demo of a head mounted display for AR (a bit like Google Glass) from a large and well known manufacturer. Okayish but tiny display but no tracking, no camera, no IMU, super finicky and fragile mechanically, with rather poor ergonomics because it didn't want to stay in place (if you have even managed to put it on in the first place). The entire thing has been essentially conceived as a portable display for a video player, including a box with battery and they are hoping to sell it as an OEM "module" where the customer will assemble their own "glasses". However, it costs more than the Hololens and the vendor thinks they have a market leading product. What can you say to that ...

Regards,

Jan

[Jan Ciger]

Oh, but Velodyne are the high end state-of-the-art lidars used by all the autonomous car and robots, LOL. You don't want to know how much does the cheapest one cost :-p You could buy quite a few Kinects for the price of one of these toys. That's a totally different league. 

J. 

[Jan Ciger]

On Sun, Jan 8, 2017 at 1:29 AM, TobyCWood <andyc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Another thing I saw which demonstrates my disappointment in the VR experiences I had was at the Stern booth. These guys make pinball machines. They were using the Rift to show their virtual pinball games. I got to play it for awhile and it is just like actually standing there and looking at a real pinball machine.... but....  why?!? The VR aspect of it was novel but added nothing at all to the game. They could have let he player zoom down into the machine, allow teleporting and then slow down the speed... now that would be interesting!

I actually quite understand the concept - if you are selling pinballs, it is quite hard (and expensive) to bring a machine to a potential client for a demo. Shipping the client to your showroom may not always be an option. Bringing an HMD and showing a simulation is a lot simpler solution. So I think that is the primary goal of that application - to support sales, not to be a real VR pinball game. Our company has built a few of these types of applications too, both AR and VR ones, because it is much easier to take a small suitcase with equipment somewhere than a large industrial machine or some heavy car part that you want the client to see.

Regards,

J. 

[TobyCWood]

Primesense styled approaches IMO are not good enough. I have two of them and already tried. Bleh. A good dslr and Agisoft is better, but based on my conversation with them I might be able to get one of there smaller units and use it at a different scan rate then the auto makers are and get much more acceptable results. We shall see.

[Jan Ciger]

But those are not apples to apples comparisons. The Primesense hw was
never intended for high resolution 3D scanning (nor an autonomous car).
While it can be used for that, because the algorithms don't really care
where do you get the depth information from, the results will match the
quality of your input, obviously.

It was meant for a human-computer interaction. So the resolution,
accuracy, framerate and price are much different than those of a DSLR or
a high-end LIDAR. A DSLR or that LIDAR would be completely useless as a
game controller too.

If you want to do 3D scanning, you would be a lot better by simply
buying a 3D scanner. That Velodyne LIDAR unit is not really designed for
it and you would have to do a lot of software hacking to get it to do
what you want. Professional laser scanning units sell (you can also rent
it) for prices comparable with those LIDARs and come ready to use,
outputting point cloud and mesh data right away.

Regards,

Jan

[TobyCWood]

I already have quite a few 3D scanners. Every kind. Laser, structured light, IR pattern based. Some are ok for 3D printing but not vr. Even the higher end kinds. I was able to get some quality time at the booth and they showed me what I could do with the small module device they are now selling to auto makers.

[Jan Ciger]

But that depends on what exactly you are after. Scanning object?
Scanning rooms/buildings? Also keep in mind that 3D scanning is no
miracle, it works as only an input to manual post processing/cleaning up
at best.

I am quite not sure how to understand this:

"Some are ok for 3D printing but not vr."

For me those two things are very much completely orthogonal use cases,
so I am not quite sure what you are attempting to do with it.

Regards,

J.

[TobyCWood]

Orthogonal? Really? A finer point cloud meets both. How is that orthogonal?

Never mind... this is obviously your forum. I'm outta here.

[Jan Ciger]

On Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 5:34 AM, TobyCWood <andyc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Orthogonal? Really? A finer point cloud meets both. How is that orthogonal?

By orthogonal I mean that the device (& software) is optimized either for interaction/realtime use (like in VR)  or for scanning. Practically never for both. You can take a Kinect, Hololens or the Velodyne LIDAR, use it for scanning and the results will suck - too low resolution because it is designed/optimized for speed not the point cloud quality. E.g. the Velodyne Puck has +-3cm accuracy, the most expensive HDL-64E used by most autonomous cars has "<2cm" accuracy specified - because these are meant for navigating robots, not scanning and this is good enough for that application. 

Or you can take a structured light laser scanner or something like a FARO scanner (http://www.faro.com/products/3d-surveying/laser-scanner-faro-focus-3d/overview)  designed for mapping with 1-2mm accuracy (order of magnitude better than the Velodyne LIDARs + allows photographic overlays/texture capture) and try to use it for interactive stuff - and it won't work well neither (large resolution, enormous volumes of data, slow). 

Also things change depending on whether you are scanning a small object or something like a room or a factory floor and different technologies are suitable for each - but I guess you know that since you have the scanners.

Then there is the issue that the high resolution scanned meshes/point clouds are rarely directly usable in a 3D engine/VR without massive decimation/post processing and cleaning (we tried ...). Finer point cloud is not always a win. 

That's why I have been asking what do you mean by "OK for 3D printing but not VR" and what sort of thing are you trying to scan/model. I would imagine that if the resolution is good enough for 3D printing (~ 1mm?) it would be sufficient for VR too, but I don't know your use case. E.g. for us what worked best so far was to use the scan as a means to get the basic dimensions of the object correct quickly and then remodel it from photographs. It is faster and produces higher quality results than trying to fit a mesh to the scanned point cloud. However, I imagine this might not work for everything. 

Regards,

Jan