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Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

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Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#121

Post by YetAnotherNick »

trzy wrote: post #40
sdrinf wrote: post #16

The primary use case for passthrough is not AR, it was not intended to be projecting stuff over room interior, and as such, it's crap at a thing that it is explicitely not optimized for. The primary use case for passthrough is bringing stuff into VR, specifically your hands (when used in hand tracking mode), and your keyboard. Your monitor is projected into VR by being hooked to your headset. Any other function's uti…

That's an extremely limited view of passthrough. Passthrough will be most useful for spatial applications like telepresence, in-situ learning, modeling and creation, and visualization, where remaining present and aware of your surroundings is preferable to the undesirable immersion of VR. The bet here is that useful interactions with virtual objects and interfaces don't benefit from disorienting virtual environments.…

Actually I think opposite is true. The camera is far off from the eye, so in any case you wouldn't feel the immersion, and I think making the camera better would make you more disoriented, rather than less.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#122

Post by georgewsinger »

cycomanic wrote: post #104

As a side note, has anyone seen a test/review of the simula one ( https://simulavr.com/ )? I think they actually have the correct ideas about making a business/developer headset and I'm seriously considering pre-ordering (but have had quite bad experiences with pre-ordering in the past, so have been holding off for now).

Though we finished our first Simula One "Review Unit" back in September (this being a stripped down prototype which demonstrates display, optics, and main board functionality), we haven't released a prototype to testers yet due to it being too unpolished. You can see some videos of it in action however here[1].

Here are some things on the horizon for us to finish before we release test units to YouTubers:

- Add an IPD adjustment mechanism[2]. Currently, our prototype's IPD is locked in place until we add this functionality, which makes it really poor for testing since there's lots of variation in IPD.

- Incorporate our front-facing cameras for our AR Mode. On this front, we recently shipped our Camera Boards to PCB fab[3]. Note that our cameras support 2448x2048 per eye resolution, and are placed more directly over the eyes than the Quest Pro (avoiding the issues discussed in the parent post). For a fuller comparison against the Quest Pro see[4].

- Replace our FPGA eval board with our own custom FPGA. (Just started on this; will likely discuss it during our next blog update).

- Integrate our detachable compute pack to the back of the headset (right now our compute pack is just dangling).

So all in all, while much of the core functionality is there, our headset is still too unpolished to send to YouTubers.

Also: I understand your skepticism RE preordering. We try to keep a consistent stream of blog updates to at least let people know what's going on engineering wise.

[1] https://simulavr.com/blog/first-glimpse-of-review-units/

[2] https://simulavr.com/blog/simula-one-auto-ipd-adjustment/

[3] https://simulavr.com/blog/camera-boards-submitted/

[4] https://simulavr.com/blog/simula-one-vs-quest-pro/

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#124

Post by YetAnotherNick »

edgefield wrote: post #21

A new VR arcade opened up in my area and I visited with my son. They were using HTC Vive headsets, which retail for $1,000+. It’s the first time I really used VR, especially in a couch coop mode setup. The following struck me: (1) There is no killer, must have game for VR. Beat Saber seems to be the most popular and mainstream game but not nearly engaging enough to convince the mass market to buy one or more VR heads…

> We had a 1 hour session with the goggles and I felt quite sea sick during and after gameplay. The headset was also uncomfortable after 30 minutes or so. Playing games while sea sick is about as much fun as it sounds. It’s pretty awful.

This reduces significantly wit time. Also on the first time you don't know which setting works for you, having correct IPD, straps etc. When I used my quest 2 for the first time, I could hardly use it for 10 minutes, and now I could use it for 1 hours. I think if I use it everyday even that limit will be increased.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#125

Post by ncr100 »

Zee2 wrote: post #76
zmmmmm wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes I think the success of the reprojection is a much under appreciated achievement. The author repeatedly questions their claim of "seamless" but its one of the most stunning aspects that you can, for example, see your real arm outside the headset exactly map onto your virtual arm and hand inside it, as do other objects that bridge from external reality to the virtual reality view. This "seamless" nature of it is re…

Yeah, I really don't think people understand how critical the reprojection is. A lot of folks, apparently Karl Guttag included, think that the resolution of the passthrough is the most important factor for usefulness. And/or that the resolution of the cameras is even directly related to the quality of the passthrough to begin with! The pixel count is just one of the dozens of quality metrics, and is arguably actually…

Post to his blog if you want an answer - he responds

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#126

Post by jayd16 »

jjfoooo4 wrote: post #88
zmmmmm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to laugh because you typify so much the average commenter about VR ... "I tried it once for an hour and here is my essay writing off the whole field".

Well, it's consumer hardware, how many hours do you expect people to log before they "get it?" It's useful to hear the experience of casual testers, enthusiasts will praise the technical achievements, but that doesn't mean it's a good product.

Probably more than one before they can say there are no games worth playing. How many games and how many minutes of gameplay could that have been?

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#127

Post by jayd16 »

makeitdouble wrote: post #20

As a Quest2 user the passthrough view is only usable to find back the controllers and clear my surroundings, so I genuinely wondered how much better it got on the Pro with all the “project a secondary display” push. From these results, it looks like you’ll still be SOL if you forgot which key on your keyboard has the backtick, or try to quickly glance at your phone, or check your room’s air quality or temperature to…

It's good enough to hunt and peck a keyboard but a phone screen is usually too blown out. The Pro sits off from your face more so you'd just see a phone or a keyboard through the gap anyhow.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#128

Post by mellosouls »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #90
RajT88 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My employer could send me one. I wouldn't use it. I would, if it was high quality enough to be comfortable for long term use, and there was decent enough virtual desktop software to have many floating windows of all the software you use.

would you use it to let your employer monitor your attention, physical behavior and activity? beyond what an audio call provides them with

The one (using it to give another option for working) doesn't imply the other (consenting to increased monitoring).

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#129

Post by jayd16 »

batch12 wrote: post #6
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #4

The passthrough isn't supposed to be able to read an eye chart. The actual displayed screens look very good though.

You're not supposed to be able to see well through the device?

It's not promising to be able to drive with it. You can have the device on and see other people and the space around you while still interacting with virtual objects. You can safely operate the device in a cluttered space without clearing a 3x3 meter space.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#130

Post by avx56 »

alasdair_ wrote: post #33
edgefield wrote: post #21

A new VR arcade opened up in my area and I visited with my son. They were using HTC Vive headsets, which retail for $1,000+. It’s the first time I really used VR, especially in a couch coop mode setup. The following struck me: (1) There is no killer, must have game for VR. Beat Saber seems to be the most popular and mainstream game but not nearly engaging enough to convince the mass market to buy one or more VR heads…

Half Life: Alyx is extremely realistic and immersive and is the game I most commonly use to show people VR for the first time. I have a nice PC gaming rig however - I'm not sure what it's like otherwise.

I played through the whole thing on a 1660 Ti Mobile, and it looked great on medium settings on a Quest 2.
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