1. VR Hardware Overview Charlotte VR Meetup
Steven Freund
Scott Thomson
Justin Vita
Nov 21, 2016

2. Game Plan Terms Infrastructure Overview Computer Needs
Headsets and Primary Controllers
Where is the Industry Going?

3. Terminology VR (Virtual Reality) and AR (Augmented Reality)
Mixed Reality
Immersion and Presence
HMD – Head Mounted Display
Head Tracking
Eye Tracking
Room Scale
Haptics
Presence -

4. Terminology Resolution = Display Quality (the number of Pixels)
Refresh Rate or Frame Rate (fps – frames per second or Hz)
Higher is better with lower than 90 possibly inducing motion sickness
Latency (in milliseconds (ms); lower is better)
How fast information is reflected in headset (i.e. turning your head fast; updating data from end source). An example is the lag you see on a video conference.
FOV – Field of View
Side to side view without turning your head. We have about 200 degrees by moving just your eyes.
Foveated Rendering (taken from FOV).
Highest quality only in your eye’s focus area

5. Infrastructure Overview
Computer
System (Headset, Primary Controllers, and Tracking Method)
Why such high specifications are needed
Motion Sickness
When you move your head, how fast the screen resolves
Latency

6. Computer Needs CPU, GPU, USB ports, RAM, Bandwidth
“Min” current specs of Vive and Rift
CPU – Intel i5, i7
GPU – GTX 970
Developers are working on reducing this spec. Radeon equivalent of a 970 is R9 290
R9 290X ; 980 Ti = Fury X, Titan = 295X2
GTX “Pascal” architecture (GTX 10 series – 50% better than previous)
PlayStation 4 can run headset

7. Headsets and Primary Controllers
High Tier
Vive, Rift
Medium High Tier
Sony PlayStation, Microsoft Windows 10 VR*
Medium Low Tier
Gear VR, Daydream
Try it out Tier
Google Cardboard
Commercial Systems
High Tier+
Microsoft partnered with HP, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, and Acer to produce the Windows 10 VR headsets. Will start at $299. Lowered the specs so it can be powered by a $500 PC.
* Specs unknown at this time

8. High Tier
Visuals
Resolution
Rift and Vive are 1080p per eye
PlayStation is 960p per eye
FOV (field of view)
Rift, Vive, and PlayStation are all around degrees
Commercial Systems claim up to 180 degrees (The Void)
Latency – How often the headset gets refreshed (in milliseconds)
Movement and Tracking
Resolution = Display Quality (the number of Pixels)
HD TV = x 1080 (Horizontal, Vertical) [also known as 1080p]
UHD, 4K = 3840 x 2160
Vive, Rift are 1080 x 1200 per eye = 2160 x 1200
PlayStation = 960 x 1080 per eye = 1920 x 1080
Gear VR, Google Daydream = Based on phone (less than the others)
Refresh Rate or Frame Rate (fps – frames per second or Hz; higher is better with lower than 90 inducing some to have motion sickness)
Vive, Rift = 90 fps
PlayStation = fps
Phones are probably 60 or so
Latency (in milliseconds (ms); lower is better)
How fast information is reflected in headset (i.e. turning your head fast; updating data from end source). An example of latency is the lag you see on a video conference.
Combination of headset, cables, graphics cardGPU, CPU, software, and some other things
Main component is refresh rate of GPU
Motion sickness becomes a factor for anything greater than 20ms; Preference is for 7ms or lower
LCD screens – bad. Major systems use OLED. Phones use LCD.
Biggest barrier to wireless especially for high end systems
FOV – Field of View
Vive, Rift, PlayStation all around 100 degrees
Foveated Rendering (taken from FOV)

9. HTC Vive

10. Oculus Rift

11. PlayStation VR
Problems – losing tracking

12. FOVE – Eye Tracking VR

13. FOVE Kickstarter Specs

14. Gear VR
Hot, battery, controllers
But mobile! Good quality screen

15. Daydream VR
Currently only compatible with Google Pixel or Pixel XL

16. Google Cardboard

17. Augmented Reality
Microsoft HoloLens
Magic Leap
Meta

18. Haptic Devices & Accessories
Haptics
Oculus Touch, Vive Controllers, PlayStation Move
VR Gloves – Gloveone, Dexta
VR Footwear – Brilliant Sole
Audio
Impulsonic
Ossic
Active VR
Virtuix Omni
Cyberith Virtualizer
360° Cameras – Stereoscopic Video
Gloveone – feel the weights of virtual objects, feel different textures, trigger actions/commands. Uses it’s own tracking system.
Brilliant Sole - pressure gauging sensors and haptic motors embedded in the insole directly underneath your feet, and accelerometers to create virtual movement in a confined space.

19. 360° Cameras Samsung Gear 360 VR Ricoh Theta GoPro Odyssey
Facebook Surround 360
360° Cameras – GoPro, Ricoh Theta, Samsung Gear 360 VR, Kodak,
Samsung Gear 360 & Ricoh Theta- The front and rear lenses each capture 180 degrees horizontally and vertically, creating a complete 360-degree field of view. Viewable on GearVR and Galaxy Smartphone
GoPro – Partnership with Google, $15K. All 16 HERO4 cameras are synced down to the pixel level to function as one camera. Can shoot up to 8K video.
Facebook Surround 360 – made up of 17 cameras – stitched together in 4K,6K, and 8K for each eye. >$30K
Nokia Ozo ($60K) – most expensive, partnership with Disney

20. Looking Ahead More Haptic Devices Wireless VR 1 Device to do it all
TPCAST – Wireless upgrade kit for HTC Vive
No “noticeable difference” in latency
Oculus standalone headset – Santa Cruz
Quality between Rift and Gear VR
Uses “inside-out” tracking – no wires, no sensors
Wifi – ax
1 Device to do it all
More haptics – gun controllers, steering wheels, 3rd party devices,
Oculus Santa Cruz uses something called "inside-out tracking," a technology that uses cameras on the headset for positional movement -- so that the game can know if you're crouching or leaning to one side (instead of external sensors)
Wires are connected to what appears to be a miniature computer attached to the rear of the headset (the part that hits the back of your head).
Inside out tracking makes it much easier for multiple people to use headsets in the same area
1 device to do AR/VR and can switch back and forth at will. Microsoft VR is an example of this – their new VR device and the HoloLens will run off of the same software which could be them preparing for a single device that does both.

21. Wrap Up
Questions and Comments
Demo of Vive and Rift