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Inside Magic Leap

forbes.com

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Re: Inside Magic Leap

#181

Post by schnelle »

SolarNet wrote: post #132
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uploadvr demystified this stuff a couple years ago: http://uploadvr.com/magic-leap-how-it-works/ Magic leap is a pair of glasses you wear on your face that displays AR imagery through a clear glass lens. There's a cable leading from these glasses to your pocket where you have a tablet-size device doing all the heavy lifting, most likely using mobile SoC's. Pretty sure you can't run a desktop CPU and GPU on a pocketab…

There is a bigger problem, as well. Tracking, the glasses will need to use a lot of the GPU (and CPU) processing power for simply tracking the environment. So they don't have backgrounds, that doesn't account for much anyway, like maybe 10% of GPU power goes to that. Tracking an environment takes like an entire card at the moment.

Microsoft created an ASIC they call an HPU (holographic processing unit) that does this work for the GPU. It takes data from the depth sensors and sends the resulting point data straight to the CPU.

One of the researchers posted a 30ish min video on the hardware inside the Hololens on YouTube. It's this HPU / sensors that Microsoft is licensing to the hardware manufacturers for the upcoming VR and AR headsets. We'll know more December 8th, and after their hardware expo later this year.

Re: Inside Magic Leap

#182

Post by jsemrau »

jm4 wrote: post #165
pault wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, if the tracking and resolution is first-in-class, there are a billion business applications that won't require major graphics horsepower. I'm going to buy a vive soon to play around with virtual desktop, but I don't have high hopes for it since I know the resolution isn't there yet. If they can come up with something light weight and high resolution that lets me see the rest of my environment I'm all in.

Don't buy the Vive for virtual desktop unless you don't care about your money. I have the Vive and it's awesome for games. Virtual desktop is cool too, but it's not something you want to use for any length of time. It's like looking at your phone stretched out on a 50 foot screen. VR videos are about the only use. Anything else is maybe just a glimpse into the future. The resolution is too low right now.

That sounds like a dreadful future. Sitting for extended periods in virtual meetings with this headset on without any chance to refocus your eyes, drink something, doodle.

Re: Inside Magic Leap

#183

Post by schnelle »

xorxornop wrote: post #169

So what makes this display tech any different (more special) from that in Hololens? Because it sounds very similar, if not identical..?

In a nutshell, Hololens has a fixed focal depth of 2m and objects are scaled proportionally to mimic distance. Magic Leap uses stacked optical elements that can be turned on/off (source of the name digital wave guide they use) and each plane is a different focal depth. So, by mimicking the way light would reach the eye normally, the ML results in more realistic objects in the world.

Re: Inside Magic Leap

#185

Post by jpalomaki »

kbenson wrote: post #118
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe never. Pascal is 16nm process and the mid-range gaming card, the 1070, uses up to 150 watts. A "powerful" mobile chipset uses a tiny fraction of that even at its highest settings. 100 watts for the CPU and another 150watts for the GPU is a staggering 250watts of continuous power no pocket-able lithium-ion battery can handle. If we want current gen graphics we're more than likely looking at a PC backpack solutio…

Part of me says just distribute the battery all around, thighs, legs, torso and you'll at least have good power. Another part of me says this is ludicrous, and is akin to strapping thermite and a bunch of loose strike anywhere matches into pouches all around your body.

For many professional applications it is not hard to imagine people wearing some kind of vest or belt related to this.

Re: Inside Magic Leap

#186

Post by untoreh »

jm4 wrote: post #165
pault wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, if the tracking and resolution is first-in-class, there are a billion business applications that won't require major graphics horsepower. I'm going to buy a vive soon to play around with virtual desktop, but I don't have high hopes for it since I know the resolution isn't there yet. If they can come up with something light weight and high resolution that lets me see the rest of my environment I'm all in.

Don't buy the Vive for virtual desktop unless you don't care about your money. I have the Vive and it's awesome for games. Virtual desktop is cool too, but it's not something you want to use for any length of time. It's like looking at your phone stretched out on a 50 foot screen. VR videos are about the only use. Anything else is maybe just a glimpse into the future. The resolution is too low right now.

well that's quite sad. I was hoping a vr headset could be a valid substitute for multi-monitor setups, we just have to hope they get to that point. Smartphones kind of peaked around 4th gen, so we should wait a couple more gens of vr at least :p

Re: Inside Magic Leap

#187

Post by yunolisten »

mojomark wrote: post #120
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uploadvr demystified this stuff a couple years ago: http://uploadvr.com/magic-leap-how-it-works/ Magic leap is a pair of glasses you wear on your face that displays AR imagery through a clear glass lens. There's a cable leading from these glasses to your pocket where you have a tablet-size device doing all the heavy lifting, most likely using mobile SoC's. Pretty sure you can't run a desktop CPU and GPU on a pocketab…

> There's a cable leading from these glasses to your pocket where you have a tablet-size device doing all the heavy lifting, most likely using mobile SoC's. Pretty sure you can't run a desktop CPU and GPU on a pocketable device. > You don't get 1080gtx performance or anything remotely close to that with a setup like this. Its mobile-level graphics. A.) the pocket device is the light source array that feed the scannin…

> we're thinking about simply releasing as a FOSH project.

More details would be fantastic

Re: Inside Magic Leap

#188

Post by hawski »

kelsolaar wrote: post #160
bobsil1 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the paper link. Is there a plausible way to use destructive interference to create true black? I remember patents around this.

Most of the light that is received by the retina in day to day life is highly incoherent thus it is unlikely that you can produce a destructive wavefront for it.

Would collimator in front help?

Re: Inside Magic Leap

#189

Post by koolba »

jsemrau wrote: post #182
jm4 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't buy the Vive for virtual desktop unless you don't care about your money. I have the Vive and it's awesome for games. Virtual desktop is cool too, but it's not something you want to use for any length of time. It's like looking at your phone stretched out on a 50 foot screen. VR videos are about the only use. Anything else is maybe just a glimpse into the future. The resolution is too low right now.

That sounds like a dreadful future. Sitting for extended periods in virtual meetings with this headset on without any chance to refocus your eyes, drink something, doodle.

> That sounds like a dreadful future. Sitting for extended periods in virtual meetings with this headset on without any chance to refocus your eyes, drink something, doodle.

Ugh. I just imagined a room full of people sitting around a conference table with VR headsets on. Not a pretty thought indeed.

Re: Inside Magic Leap

#190

Post by mojomark »

kelsolaar wrote: post #160
bobsil1 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the paper link. Is there a plausible way to use destructive interference to create true black? I remember patents around this.

Most of the light that is received by the retina in day to day life is highly incoherent thus it is unlikely that you can produce a destructive wavefront for it.

I agree that the lack of coherence (spatial & temporal) of ambient lighy would makes the use of diffraction gratings to actively create destructive interference patterns on the retina a futile efftort. Ambient light is generally a white lighy (lacks temporal coherence) and many wavefronts originate closer to the eye than the optical infinity (~8m) and are therefore fairly divergent (curved and thus lack spatial coherence). The resulting interference patterne would therefore be very blurry. Too blurry to form a useful black pixel image on the retina.

On the other hand, I believe ML is proposing to use a gratings to display black/clear images. In this setup, the incident ambient light wavefronts are selectively redirected using bragg gratings (why they keep saying Braff gratings" in their literature is beyond me). This technique has been around for many years and is still captivating to watch even in this day and age - see:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

The realization that this affect retains its "sharpness" for near eye applications in concert with (I believe) the realization that you can utilize the electonically-controlled diffraction grating layers you already have in your device (for the purpose of controlling wavefront curvature to support eye depth accommodation) depth is really quite clever. It's truly an exciting prospectct!

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