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Launch HN: Vimmerse (YC W22) – Platform and SDKs to create and play 3D video

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Re: Launch HN: Vimmerse (YC W22) – Platform and SDKs to create and play 3D video

#11

Post by jillboyce »

DonHopkins wrote: post #7

Will there be an Emacsmerse compatibility mode? ;) But more seriously (but still on the spirit of Emacs), how will your 3D video player be scriptable and extensible at runtime? I have some positive experience with extensible 3D panoramic stereo videos players, which I'd love to share with you: I developed a system for JauntVR that enables cross-platform scripting of Unity3D applications in JavaScript, for Jaunt's 3D…

Thanks for the info about the open sourced UnityJS. I'll take a look.

We hadn't thought about making the 3D video player be scriptable and extensible at runtime, and will give it some thought.

Being able to overlay 3D graphics ( including titles) onto the 3D video is on our roadmap. Glad to hear confirmation that it will be a useful feature to add.

Re: Launch HN: Vimmerse (YC W22) – Platform and SDKs to create and play 3D video

#13

Post by jzer0cool »

Intrigued by the number of patents you have, 200! I like to understand the process of submitting a simple one. Could you share costs and share process so I can get habit of attempting to submit one? Has any patents come to fruition in terms of royalties, $$, etc., do you mind sharing?

Re: Launch HN: Vimmerse (YC W22) – Platform and SDKs to create and play 3D video

#14

Post by jillboyce »

jzer0cool wrote: post #13

Intrigued by the number of patents you have, 200! I like to understand the process of submitting a simple one. Could you share costs and share process so I can get habit of attempting to submit one? Has any patents come to fruition in terms of royalties, $$, etc., do you mind sharing?

All of my granted patents are owned by my previous employers, who also paid all expenses involved in submitting the patent applications, and collect any royalties. Some of my patents are essential for video codec standards, including H.264/AVC and HEVC.

It was a change of mindset to apply for my first patent for Vimmerse.

If you are in the US, the USPTO has a good overview here: https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics/patent-process-overview

Application fees are lower for small entities or micro entities. https://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-resources/fees-and-paymen...

But the biggest cost is paying for a patent attorney to prepare the application. If you want to try to do it on your own, I found this book very helpful: https://www.amazon.com/Invention-Analysis-Claiming-Patent-La...

Good luck!

Re: Launch HN: Vimmerse (YC W22) – Platform and SDKs to create and play 3D video

#15

Post by DonHopkins »

jillboyce wrote: post #11
DonHopkins wrote: post #7

Will there be an Emacsmerse compatibility mode? ;) But more seriously (but still on the spirit of Emacs), how will your 3D video player be scriptable and extensible at runtime? I have some positive experience with extensible 3D panoramic stereo videos players, which I'd love to share with you: I developed a system for JauntVR that enables cross-platform scripting of Unity3D applications in JavaScript, for Jaunt's 3D…

Thanks for the info about the open sourced UnityJS. I'll take a look. We hadn't thought about making the 3D video player be scriptable and extensible at runtime, and will give it some thought. Being able to overlay 3D graphics ( including titles) onto the 3D video is on our roadmap. Glad to hear confirmation that it will be a useful feature to add.

You're welcome, and I'm happy to discuss it further, and point you to the newer code that you can use or pick over for tips and tricks as you desire.

Once you can overlay 3D graphics on 3D video, you'll definitely want runtime scriptability!

Because of its name "UnityJS", sometimes people misinterpret that it's something like Unity's old and now thankfully deprecated "UnityScript", a compiled (not runtime interpreted or JITted) ersatz JavaScript-ish language, that was really just a thin wrapper around the CLR C# APIs, without most of the standard JavaScript APIs, plus it's own weird syntax and object system to make it even more uncanny.

But UnityJS is a totally different approach for a much different purpose, and I wish I could think of a better less confusing and loaded name for it.

Each platform has its own APIs and quirks for efficiently integrating and exchanging JSON messages with its own browser and Unity, in Objective C for iOS, Java for Android, and JavaScript for WebGL.

UnityJS abstracts those platform differences like (and by using) a web browser, so you can write cross-platform JavaScript code, and communicate with Unity via JSON messages, which uses JSON.net to convert back and forth between JSON and C# and Unity objects.

It's better to rely on the build-in JavaScript engine in each platform's standard web browser, than trying to roll your own scripting language from scratch, bundle your own copy of Chrome, or use a less ubiquitous languages than JavaScript (as much as I love Lua and Python).

What's great about that approach is that it lets you use standard development tools: you can live code and debug WkWebView based iOS apps with the desktop Safari developer tools, and Android Chrome component based apps with the desktop Chrome developer tools.

And it works seamlessly with the entire ecosystem of browser based JavaScript libraries. (Which is a relief if you've ever tried to get a Windows C# library to work with Unity's version of C#, let alone trying to port any JavaScript library to UnityScript, which was practically futile).

On iOS, using the standard WkWebView browser as a scripting engine also avoids the infuriating non-technical Dumb Apple App Store Rules Problem, because they prohibit apps that dynamically download and update and interpret any kind of dynamic code, UNLESS you use their browser and JavaScript engine.

Consequently, WkWebKit's JavaScript is the only runtime scripting language you're allowed to use on iOS (it's much better than the old UIWebView because it has a great JIT compiler). Fortunately it works quite well! So be it.

Re: Launch HN: Vimmerse (YC W22) – Platform and SDKs to create and play 3D video

#16

Post by pavlov »

Congrats on the launch!

I've been very interested in this field since the original Kinect came out and it was discovered you can easily get the raw RGB+D data over USB. I made a bunch of prototypes and had ambitious plans to make a depth-enabled short movie for my film school MA degree project, with a player on the original iPad and head tracking for a parallax effect. (A project much too ambitious; I never finished the player or the movie or the degree.)

IMO you should hire an in-house artist right away, assuming you have funding. Right now your Featured Content section looks like demo footage from academic papers. For someone uninitiated, this content doesn't really present the potential of immersive video.

You should have someone with enough artistic vision and technical competence whose primary job is to come up with new exciting demos of your technology. That person will need patience and a start-up mentality because the content production pipeline for something this cutting-edge is probably very foreign to most artists. But it would make a huge difference in how people can understand your project.

(If I were twelve years younger I'd send you a job application right away. Working on this would have been my dream job.)

Re: Launch HN: Vimmerse (YC W22) – Platform and SDKs to create and play 3D video

#17

Post by almog »

opan wrote: post #5

No relation to vim then? I guess it's v for virtual and then "immerse".

"Ah, finally a VR platform where decent people (and otherwise) can immerse themselves in vim..." I thought to myself while deep inside me I knew it was destined to be a short road to disappointment and heartbreak.

Re: Launch HN: Vimmerse (YC W22) – Platform and SDKs to create and play 3D video

#18

Post by jillboyce »

pavlov wrote: post #16

Congrats on the launch! I've been very interested in this field since the original Kinect came out and it was discovered you can easily get the raw RGB+D data over USB. I made a bunch of prototypes and had ambitious plans to make a depth-enabled short movie for my film school MA degree project, with a player on the original iPad and head tracking for a parallax effect. (A project much too ambitious; I never finished…

I agree that we do need some better demo content that can better illustrate the potential of 3D immersive video. We are working on that right now. I encourage anyone who has some interesting content or can make some to contact me.

Re: Launch HN: Vimmerse (YC W22) – Platform and SDKs to create and play 3D video

#19

Post by jillboyce »

DonHopkins wrote: post #15
jillboyce wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the info about the open sourced UnityJS. I'll take a look. We hadn't thought about making the 3D video player be scriptable and extensible at runtime, and will give it some thought. Being able to overlay 3D graphics ( including titles) onto the 3D video is on our roadmap. Glad to hear confirmation that it will be a useful feature to add.

You're welcome, and I'm happy to discuss it further, and point you to the newer code that you can use or pick over for tips and tricks as you desire. Once you can overlay 3D graphics on 3D video, you'll definitely want runtime scriptability! Because of its name "UnityJS", sometimes people misinterpret that it's something like Unity's old and now thankfully deprecated "UnityScript", a compiled (not runtime interpreted…

Let's follow up offline.

Re: Launch HN: Vimmerse (YC W22) – Platform and SDKs to create and play 3D video

#20

Post by BSalahieh »

pavlov wrote: post #16

Congrats on the launch! I've been very interested in this field since the original Kinect came out and it was discovered you can easily get the raw RGB+D data over USB. I made a bunch of prototypes and had ambitious plans to make a depth-enabled short movie for my film school MA degree project, with a player on the original iPad and head tracking for a parallax effect. (A project much too ambitious; I never finished…

Thank you for the comment, actually we have recently captured some interesting content that will clearly demonstrate the potential of immersive video... Those are in the make so stay tuned to see what is coming next :) As long you have the passion, this means you are young (with experience on top) for the technology. Great feedback and if you still have the kinect DK around, you may even shoot and upload some content!
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