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Simula: A VR window manager for Linux

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Re: Simula: A VR window manager for Linux

#141

Post by georgewsinger »

ebg13 wrote: post #124
carapace wrote: post #80

Been thinking about VR workspaces since sometime in the '80's. Broadly, they suck. It seems so cool but in practice VR adds pointless overhead to efficient UI. Windows with affine transformations suck at their one job . Very few people use Second Life as an IDE. The big win, as far as I can tell, would be to engage the user's spacial memory. (There is a small but non-zero niche for 3D visualization of complex systems…

> Windows with affine transformations There's no reason you can't make the windows always perpendicular to the line of sight while still fixing their centers in space.

This actually used to be the default behavior in Simula a few months ago, and worked really well. There's a few use cases where it imposes a tradeoff though (specifically: it makes it hard hold windows in a specific orientation in space when you might accidentally look at them), so we now use a key binding to do this instead.

Re: Simula: A VR window manager for Linux

#142

Post by zmmmmm »

kanetw wrote: post #131
Robotbeat wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’d be awesome if you could do this natively on the Quest (sideloaded). Native gesture control, inside-out tracking, wireless, almost twice the resolution, and wouldn’t even need to be connected to a PC at all so could be used anywhere (with Bluetooth keyboard and mouse). Have you thought about an Android/Quest version?

IIRC the Quest is too different, but our medium to long-term goal is to design a portable computer in HMD format, if that's feasible. I'll take a look at Quest docs and see if it's doable, but I don't have high hopes for it.

Quest would be amazing because it would truly demonstrate a completely untethered, self contained portable full desktop system that you could take anywhere.

Having said that, getting even a standard desktop setup on Android to work well is iffy so doing it in VR does seem like a pretty immense challenge. But it would be a breakthrough in what it could demonstrate in terms of the concept.

Re: Simula: A VR window manager for Linux

#143

Post by georgewsinger »

tambourine_man wrote: post #136

Very cool demo but I don’t want to read/write (code or otherwise) at an angle. It’s tiresome and straining. Whatever I’m editing should be frontmost and dead center, IMO.

We have a key binding that automatically orients the active window towards the user's gaze. If you're interested, I could make a launch flag that leaves this feature on by default, so that any window you look at automatically orients itself toward your gaze. This actually used to be the default behavior in Simula a few iterations ago, and worked nicely in most contexts.

Re: Simula: A VR window manager for Linux

#144

Post by kanetw »

vsareto wrote: post #42
ollifi wrote: post #24

Looks cool and will try it out. That said, these things always feel like old paradigm stuffed in to new technology. Bit similar like when film was new people kept using it to record theater. It took years to come up with editing, not having to start scene by people entering the stage etc. Now that we have unlimited spatial space to manipulate the thing we come up with is to fill it with 2d screens.

There aren't a lot of jobs that can really use the 'space' provided by VR. I think the adoption here would have to drastically outpace multiple monitors and OS workspaces and keyboard shortcuts. I can easily get to 10-20 tabs in VS Code or a browser, but my attention is only really ever on one at a time. If I have to search through them, I'll have to do that on a monitor or in VR. I might be able to organize better i…

I end up needing a lot of screen real estate whenever I work on some EE project --- datasheets, schematic, PCB editor, calculator, notes. Additionally, being able to e.g. manipulate the enclosure and PCB to do a test fit and immediately edit things would be super cool.

Re: Simula: A VR window manager for Linux

#145

Post by anp »

ggreer wrote: post #78
kanetw wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Navigation is one of the things we definitely need to improve upon. I think the wiggling is actually kind of natural -- you don't notice your head or eye movements when you do them automatically, but it might be exacerbated in VR. The fixing is an interesting idea, we'll try it out. I'm a bit worried it might feel weird in VR.

YouTube has support for VR videos. If you could record & render such that people with headsets could watch a session, that might help with interest and adoption. I think navigation needs eye tracking, which sadly no headset currently supports. Focus-follows-gaze would be a game changer.

I bought a Vive Pro Eye specifically to try and develop eye tracking navigation for a system like this. I haven’t done any actual digging yet bc it turns out the NDAs for their SDK are...unfortunate. Definitely an opportunity for a free/open alternative.

Re: Simula: A VR window manager for Linux

#146

Post by greggman3 »

jstanley wrote: post #18

Possibly a stupid question, but is it possible to try this out on an Oculus Quest? E.g. with a link cable?

I have Rift not a Quest so I don't know if they're the same but you can pull your desktop and every window in your desktop up in VR on the default Rift OS, even in the middle of running another VR app. I had a browser open in the middle of playing Half Life: Alyx. Did the same on No Man's Sky VR

Someone asked if I could watch all the Star Wars movies at the same time. I got 6 trailers running at once in 6 separate virtual monitors with the default built in OS feature.

Re: Simula: A VR window manager for Linux

#147

Post by greggman3 »

axegon_ wrote: post #56

Very clever idea actually, major props. Unfortunately I get really sick from VR so it's not gonna be for me but I can definitely see how someone can take advantage of that. In the WFH era for people who have tiny laptops, this could do. I personally hook mine to the tv as a second screen but still... Very clever!

Do you get sick in all VR? It was my understanding that VR generally only gets people sick when there is motion. So any stationary 6 DOF VR experience should generally not make anyone sick.

Re: Simula: A VR window manager for Linux

#148

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

wdroz wrote: post #10

I think that in 1-2 generations of VR headsets, we will no longer need monitors. For now my HTC vive isn't comparable to my 4k screens.

I think VR desktops look really cool, but I'm not sure I'd want to have to wear a VR headset every time I used my computer. Monitors will surely stick around in parallel.

Re: Simula: A VR window manager for Linux

#149

Post by greggman3 »

thcleaner999 wrote: post #62

How change would it require to run on MacOS?

It would require Apple it care about VR and gaming and VR capable GPUs. Except for a MacPro, no Apple devices are powerful enough for VR. Even the top end MacBookPro at $19000 still has an underpowered GPU below the lowest VR specs.

Re: Simula: A VR window manager for Linux

#150

Post by masswerk »

While the demo is impressive, I'm a bit unhappy with the naming. Mind that Simula [0] is a historically enormously important programming language. (The language, which introduced object-oriented programming concepts, developed by Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard, 1962-1987; Dahl and Nygaard were awarded the IEEE John von Neumann Medal and the A. M. Turing Award for this.)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simula

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