Why did HTC Vive miss the boat for Augmented reality?

[Kuraimizu]

why doesn't the Vive have Stereoscopic cameras?
why is there no infra-red and ultra violet cameras?
why no false colour overlay for an extended spectrum?
Why no augmented reality?

why didn't you build something like this?
http://ci.memecdn.com/278/9286278.jpg

[railboy]

Yeah!

Adding to this:
Why doesn't it toast bread?
Why no dishwasher?
Why can't it sing me lullabies?
Why no disco ball?

Get it together, Valve!

[Kuraimizu]

railboy
augmented reality is a legitimate gaming genre
it was even a main feature of the 3DS
all I want to know is why it wasn't included.

[Coss]

It's not the focus of the HTC Vive, virtual reality is the main goal here and they're tackling that really well, not augmented reality; there's plenty of perfectly good alternatives for that.. Although we can't speak for their developments in the future!

[mptp]

Ignoring the whole UV/Infra-red camera (which provides no benefit to anyone):

Augmented reality is absolutely not a legitimate gaming genre. I can't think of a single game that used AR in any way that wasn't a cheap gimmick. Most of what the 3DS did was make these useless collectible cards that let you look at a 3D model through the 3DS camera.

AR right now belongs in developer kits - there's no content, and developers don't know what works and what doesn't work. In a year or two, the tech will be cheaper, lighter, better, and there'll be more content. That's when it will start to make sense to provide some AR capabilities with VR headsets.

Right now, for the vast majority of consumers, you'd be adding $50+ to the price and 50+ grams to the weight for absolutely no tangible benefit.

And stereo cameras would have been pretty cool, but again, the current overlay achieves what it needs to achieve, so I'd much rather the price and weight be lower than gain one more 'nice to have'. Once the quality is 'good enough', which the Vive and Rift are, the important thing is increasing adoption, which basically depends on price, comfort and usability.

[Teriander]

Considering that the ViveVR and Oculus are the first real public released Virtual Reality headsets, I see no reason they should create it with cross functionality from VR and/or AR. Not only would it have delayed the release of the Vive, but it would also alter the price dramatically. This is evident in the $3,000 price tag for Microsoft’s Hololens (AR).

Creating VR content is obviously challenging enough, if you want an all-in-one, VR + AR + IR + UV + NV + Contact Lens, you’ll need to wait about 30 years. This is the first generation of many to come.

[Mechabit]

For true AR apps you really need a wireless device like the hololens, all the interesting applications for AR involve you being out and about and not tethered to a PC. Wait for the hololens to get a consumer release basically.

[Kuraimizu]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Teriander:

Considering that the ViveVR and Oculus are the first real public released Virtual Reality headsets, I see no reason they should create it with cross functionality from VR and/or AR. Not only would it have delayed the release of the Vive, but it would also alter the price dramatically. This is evident in the $3,000 price tag for Microsoft’s Hololens (AR).

Creating VR content is obviously challenging enough, if you want an all-in-one, VR + AR + IR + UV + NV + Contact Lens, you’ll need to wait about 30 years. This is the first generation of many to come.

Oprindeligt skrevet af Mechabit:

For true AR apps you really need a wireless device like the hololens, all the interesting applications for AR involve you being out and about and not tethered to a PC. Wait for the hololens to get a consumer release basically.

Actually lots of people in various business could make use of IR and UV being added to the regular visible spectrum.

the hololens is going to be the same problems as the Google Glass
people with glasses won't be able to use it.
the Vive on the other hand works for people who are near sighted.

Contact lenses will never have futuristic technology

[Mechabit]

Nothing stopping Microsoft from making the hololens fit glasses before release.

[Kuraimizu]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Mechabit:

Nothing stopping Microsoft from making the hololens fit glasses before release.

almost guaranteed they won't, same as google
they don't care that a lot of the people who might use their tech wear glasses.
and would require a prescription visor, or enough space to fit glasses
between the visor screen and eyes.

[Infinite]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Kuraimizu:

why doesn't the Vive have Stereoscopic cameras?

- Cost
When you are creating any 'gadget', you are trying to keep costs down. Not only do you have to pay for each unit to construct, but you are paying for the units that died at the factory, in transit, and before the warranty expires. There is also the issue of keeping the Vive's cost down so that it can be accessible to mass-market. $800 is a very high sticker price.

- Complexity
Less is more. 2 camera's cost more, could fail more, require more CPU for image processing, etc. In addition, the Vive does not use camera's for location.

Oprindeligt skrevet af Kuraimizu:

why is there no infra-red and ultra violet cameras?
why no false colour overlay for an extended spectrum?

The Vive does have tons of IR camera's, the entire Light House system is utilizing IR light to triangulate the Vive's location. Unless I am mistaken, the existing Vive camera IS showing you the false light reflected from the Light Houses. You just only see it when you get to the bounds of your play space.

Oprindeligt skrevet af Kuraimizu:

Why no augmented reality?

- VR vs AR
These two beasts are very different concepts and they require unique hardware.

VR - is heavy on graphics which is why you requires a very high-end GPU to fake reality. The VR headset do not need to know about the outside world, just the play space. Modern VR headsets were completely designed keeping in mind the failures of the 1990's VR movement. The killer of VR in the 90's was sim-sickness, which all about latency, not graphics quality.

AR - is not heavy on graphics and needs to be mobile to be useful for commercial applications. It does not need a high FOV, but needs higher Pixel Density for crisp fonts. Today, we can see the super powers of computing moving into the AR space: Apple, Google and Microsoft. The mobile nature of AR lends itself to Cloud Computer which is another reason those major players are involved. In most AR projects you are not only collecting data from Google Maps, or voice information from SIRI, but you are trying to offload as much processing as you can get away with. Tesla is an interesting AR player because you don't 'see' something like one would expect with 'glasses', but when the car drive's itself it is using AR while also loading and saving data to the Cloud about road conditions, traffic, and difficult intersections or area's to navigate.

Thus, Valve and HTC likely only have the one camera because all of these issues were considered and they know that their place is in the VR arena, not in AR.

[carl]

I've been lucky enough to have a go with Hololens very recently, I wear glasses and the adjustments on the headset allowed me to wear my glasses as well. I like the Oculus and Vive, but Hololens smashes both out of the park, MS have delivered a truly great piece of kit.

[Gomjabar 6]

I have also had a chance to try Hololens at MS Ignite in September, I was not very impressed. Based on their commercials I was expecting a full field of view experience (like Vive) but the reality was much less. The unofficial specs are 30 deg x 17.5 deg (16x9 aspect ratio) which felt like looking through a postal stamp after using the Vive. Also the audio controls took multiple tries to work (although that was in an admittedly noisy conference). The hand tracking was about as good as LEAP Motion, so that was nice (although they only give us a simple tap gesture to use...).

The standout part for me was the inside-out tracking, that was amazing!! Way better than setting up tripods for the Lighthouses. I hope, whatever the next Vive ends up being, that it has inside-out tracking.