How does the Hololens 2 matter? • Hacker News Board

Re: How does the Hololens 2 matter?

#11

Post by greeneggs » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 12:14 AM UTC

teraflop wrote: post #2

> Hololens 2 now has a 52° diagonal FOV and a 3:2 aspect ratio - so 43° horizontally and 29° vertically. [...] but it IS more than 4x the area (525°² vs 2236°²) It looks like the author got confused and multiplied the wrong numbers. 43 x 29 = 1247, so this is about a 2.4x increase in area.

The Pythagorean theorem only holds on a flat surface, not on the inside of a sphere. For small angles, it won't make much difference, but these angles are big enough to matter.

Using this solid angle calculator to compute the solid angle covered by a rectangle [1], I get that a 43° x 29° rectangle subtends 0.335 steradian (sr), while a 30° x 17.5° rectangle subtends 0.151 sr, making for a 2.2x increase in solid angle.

However, the numbers 43° and 29° apparently come from applying Pythagoras to the 52° diagonal field-of-view (fov). That's also incorrect, and I haven't done the math to correct it. (As an extreme case, for example, a 180° diagonal fov gives 180° horizontal and 180° vertical fov, so Pythagoras clearly breaks down.)

[1] http://tpm.amc.anl.gov/NJZTools/XEDSSolidAngle.html

Re: How does the Hololens 2 matter?

#12

Post by djrogers » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 12:17 AM UTC

alphakilo wrote: post #6

Very happy to see the holo lens improving. I'm hoping this can bring a growth in labour jobs which require technical skill for individuals who do not have any high-level training (e.g. electricians or mechanics). From a safety perspective, there is a lot that can be learned in envirnments like power plants, oil refineries or factories.

Why would you assume that electricians and mechanics don't have any 'high-level training'? Is it just because they didn't get a BS from Stanford?

Tech schools are a thing - and many of them are very good. And apprenticeship has been around for millennia, and is a wonderful way for someone to learn a trade or craft.

Re: How does the Hololens 2 matter?

#13

Post by stuntkite » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 12:24 AM UTC

Legogris wrote: post #9

I wonder how text rendering performs. If it's good, a Hololens 2 IDE would be an improvement over a laptop for working while traveling.

Text readability in specific context was passable on the original so I think this should be pretty good! The problems are going to be more in that it’s not quite a desktop window manager yet. It’s not designed to be a screen replacement. That is coming in the next couple years, but the bumps you’ll experience to make it your environment involve implementing and establishing paradigms that don’t exist yet and are maybe availible as a collection of weird bit rotting tech demos.

That said, you could probably wire it up to terminal and split out movable windows with a tmux wrapper. Impress your friends and strangers while you hack the Gibson, then take it off and use your laptop screen because you’re frustrated.

Re: How does the Hololens 2 matter?

#14

Post by mathgaron » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 12:44 AM UTC

Legogris wrote: post #9

I wonder how text rendering performs. If it's good, a Hololens 2 IDE would be an improvement over a laptop for working while traveling.

I talk from my personal experience with V1 and other devices using waveguides display, I felt like it is not the best type of display to do "heavy work" such as reading/coding. It is quite annoying to have everything ghostly, even if the tracking is stable and the resolution is good.

Re: How does the Hololens 2 matter?

#15

Post by fsiefken » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 12:44 AM UTC

stuntkite wrote: post #13

Legogris wrote: post #9

I wonder how text rendering performs. If it's good, a Hololens 2 IDE would be an improvement over a laptop for working while traveling.

Text readability in specific context was passable on the original so I think this should be pretty good! The problems are going to be more in that it’s not quite a desktop window manager yet. It’s not designed to be a screen replacement. That is coming in the next couple years, but the bumps you’ll experience to make it your environment involve implementing and establishing paradigms that don’t exist yet and are mayb…

Yes, same goes for using the walls in the Mixed Reality house as windows. It's readable and workable, but 3 realworld HD monitors are 'better' for getting work done.

Re: How does the Hololens 2 matter?

#16

Post by wavefunction » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 12:51 AM UTC

alphakilo wrote: post #6

Very happy to see the holo lens improving. I'm hoping this can bring a growth in labour jobs which require technical skill for individuals who do not have any high-level training (e.g. electricians or mechanics). From a safety perspective, there is a lot that can be learned in envirnments like power plants, oil refineries or factories.

My brother (a welder) had to constantly correct design flaws by the architects and engineers involved so education is something but not everything. This ranged from having to "fix" the specified measurements to ordering more material because the highly educated apparently faltered on that note.

Re: How does the Hololens 2 matter?

#17

Post by thom » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 1:12 AM UTC

stuntkite wrote: post #13

Legogris wrote: post #9

I wonder how text rendering performs. If it's good, a Hololens 2 IDE would be an improvement over a laptop for working while traveling.

Text readability in specific context was passable on the original so I think this should be pretty good! The problems are going to be more in that it’s not quite a desktop window manager yet. It’s not designed to be a screen replacement. That is coming in the next couple years, but the bumps you’ll experience to make it your environment involve implementing and establishing paradigms that don’t exist yet and are mayb…

It always surprises me how much these technologies try to run before they can walk. Giving people a great desktop experience equivalent to multiple high-end monitors just seems like the obvious first baby step. Everything else seems like fluff if they can't get that to be desirable.

Re: How does the Hololens 2 matter?

#18

Post by EamonnMR » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 1:13 AM UTC

djrogers wrote: post #12

alphakilo wrote: post #6

Very happy to see the holo lens improving. I'm hoping this can bring a growth in labour jobs which require technical skill for individuals who do not have any high-level training (e.g. electricians or mechanics). From a safety perspective, there is a lot that can be learned in envirnments like power plants, oil refineries or factories.

Why would you assume that electricians and mechanics don't have any 'high-level training'? Is it just because they didn't get a BS from Stanford? Tech schools are a thing - and many of them are very good. And apprenticeship has been around for millennia, and is a wonderful way for someone to learn a trade or craft.

I think the parent's point was that unskilled people could preform those tasks. For example, I could look at my breaker box with a hololens and it could shade in the deadly parts.

Re: How does the Hololens 2 matter?

#19

Post by mikekchar » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 1:18 AM UTC

mathgaron wrote: post #14

Legogris wrote: post #9

I wonder how text rendering performs. If it's good, a Hololens 2 IDE would be an improvement over a laptop for working while traveling.

I talk from my personal experience with V1 and other devices using waveguides display, I felt like it is not the best type of display to do "heavy work" such as reading/coding. It is quite annoying to have everything ghostly, even if the tracking is stable and the resolution is good.

I've never tried any of these devices, but the one thing that comes to mind is that I wonder if you might get eyestrain trying to use it for 8 hours a day. When working on my laptop, I'm constantly switching focus -- looking out the window, then back to the lap top, then at the wall, etc, etc. I think that kind of thing might end up being more difficult.

Re: How does the Hololens 2 matter?

#20

Post by alasdair_ » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 1:21 AM UTC

thom wrote: post #17

stuntkite wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Text readability in specific context was passable on the original so I think this should be pretty good! The problems are going to be more in that it’s not quite a desktop window manager yet. It’s not designed to be a screen replacement. That is coming in the next couple years, but the bumps you’ll experience to make it your environment involve implementing and establishing paradigms that don’t exist yet and are mayb…

It always surprises me how much these technologies try to run before they can walk. Giving people a great desktop experience equivalent to multiple high-end monitors just seems like the obvious first baby step. Everything else seems like fluff if they can't get that to be desirable.

Making a display with that high a resolution that stays in the same place with normal head movements and has a 60fs refresh rate and something like ClearType is far, far more difficult than what is being done now. This IS “obvious first baby steps”.