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

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

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 -

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

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

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 290 980 - R9 290X ; 980 Ti = Fury X, Titan = 295X2 GTX “Pascal” architecture (GTX 10 series – 50% better than previous) PlayStation 4 can run headset

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

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 100-120 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 = 1920 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 = 90 - 120 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)

HTC Vive

Oculus Rift

PlayStation VR Problems – losing tracking

FOVE – Eye Tracking VR

FOVE Kickstarter Specs

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

Daydream VR Currently only compatible with Google Pixel or Pixel XL

Google Cardboard

Augmented Reality Microsoft HoloLens Magic Leap Meta

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.

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

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 – 801.11ax 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.

Wrap Up Questions and Comments Demo of Vive and Rift