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Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

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Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#171

Post by schmorptron »

zmmmmm wrote: post #67
amelius wrote: post #26

How good is the resolution? Can you already use the device as a monitor-replacement? (I.e., coding behind a virtual monitor on an exotic location, while you're just at home behind the desk)

It's just usable as a monitor replacement, but it would be a big stretch to say it's "better". If you have even a cheap a monitor available you'd nearly always be better off actually using it. The scenario where it's better are going to be specific use cases like: - it's helpful to have it be gigantic - bigger than a real monitor could ever be - you have a real need for more monitors than would be practical to buy or…

The last point is something I've been doing with a much lower resolution headset already. Having lecture recordings up really large with no distractions helps me to understand them and staying concentrated on them much more easily.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#172

Post by nvarsj »

criddell wrote: post #109
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…

There's a VR place near me called Sandbox VR that gets good reviews on Yelp and Google. My family went and it was... okay. We played together for about 45 minutes and we all came away with the same opinion - it was kind of fun, but none of us really wanted to play it again. I don't know which headset they used but I do know we each had an entire PC in a backpack strapped to us.

Fairly sure they use HTC vive which seems to be the standard for overpriced VR experiences. It’s mostly fun to play in a group I think. But the actual games are very underwhelming - they feel like tech demos. And on top of that the staff never sets IPD or anything so unless you adjust it yourself things can be a blurry mess.

The experience of a game like Alyx on the Index/Quest is about 100x better.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#173

Post by kguttag »

zmmmmm wrote: post #45

The author persistently conflates AR and MR throughout the posting, evaluating the Quest Pro as an AR device but the concluding at the end it's a terrible "MR" device because it failed at their AR tests. It seems to suggest they really think these terms are synonymous but they aren't. While AR aims to enable display and interaction with the real world but with augmentations, MR aims to bring virtual objects into the…

You are correct that MR today implies that the Virtual image is locked to the real world with some form of SLAM.

I was a bit sloppy in that regards. I was more worried about what was going on. But when combined with the word "passthrough" to see the real world, I tend to drop back/slip to the term AR passthrough which is what this type of thing was called for years. MR, as I remember it, is a more recent term used to distinguish different types of AR. Then things flipped and XR (=AR/VR/MR) was used to mean was AR used to mean.

My guess is that late in the program, the importance of passthrough was elevated, perhaps in response to Apple rumors, but they were stuck with the hardware that was in the pipeline. The passthrough available is a big improvement over the Quest 2 for use in seeing the grouse-level surroundings, but not up to regular use in full Mixed Reality.

There are probably decades of "optimizations" left to do.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#174

Post by dividedbyzero »

vineyardmike wrote: post #134
zmmmmm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting in that context that they seem to have met with a much bigger challenge than they expected in actually delivering on their AR/VR product. Current indications are that it's going to be quite mind blowing but at the same time, highly encumbered by compromises as well (encumbered by wires, external battery packs, etc). [0] https://www.macrumors.com/2023/01/03/report-reveals-wave-of-...

> external battery packs I cannot fathom apple releasing a waist mounted battery pack like the article suggested. Absolutely refuse to accept they’d do this.

They have a mouse with its charging port at the bottom. Their first Pencil iteration plugs into the bottom of the iPad like a weird antenna for charging. I could totally see them do ugly compromises in that area for a first iteration.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#175

Post by sdiupIGPWEfh »

ryoshu wrote: post #117
sdiupIGPWEfh wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I actively reject this distinction between AR & MR. For as long as I've been aware of the concept, the term "Augmented Reality" covered both use cases, including virtual objects embedded into the real world. The distinction never struck me as interesting or useful; virtual objects embedded into the real world being the most useful way to interact with augmentations to the real world. Moreover, "Mixed Real…

Mixed reality as a term dates at least back to 1994 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality%E2%80%93virtuality_con... . Microsoft adopted it because they were doing surface mapping and occlusion culling, something that early AR (circa 2008-2012ish) really couldn't do.

Yes, the term "Mixed Reality" had some academic use going back that far, but I'd interpret that article and its citations quite differently.

These early MR references use the term to mean a spectrum from "Augmented Reality" to "Augmented Virtuality". The AV term never really caught on, and the Wikipedia link for AV [1] actually just redirects to their page for MR [2]. I can't think of many notable examples of AV at the moment, though something like "Mario Kart Live: Home_Circuit" [3], as mentioned on the Wikipedia page for MR [2], might fit the bill, in the sense that reality is being used to augment the game. Uses of haptic feedback in VR might also count as AV.

This usage of MR has nothing to do with how Microsoft began using the term. It's almost as if they embraced an academic term for the sake of marketing, extended the meaning, and successfully extinguished the original academic definition.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_virtuality

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_reality#Augmented_virtua...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Kart_Live:_Home_Circuit

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#176

Post by AndroidKitKat »

sergiotapia wrote: post #43
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 the killer VR app. It's so good that it ruined VR for me entirely. I can't play any other VR games, they all just feel like tech demos or shoddy old Unity asset flips. It's scary good and immersive. Try it, it will blow you away.

Dang, are there really no other HL:A quality games for VR? I picked a Valve Index and have been playing through Alyx an hour or so at a time and each time I think to myself "I never want this game to end." I've been trying to find some games to play after it but haven't really found any.

I've installed the HL2 VR mod and played that a few times, but without teleporting movement I got sick quiet easily. I saw another commenter saying you have to acclimate yourself to that, so I suppose I will try that in between sessions of Alyx.

Here's to hoping someone makes something as polished and as beautiful as HL:A

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#177

Post by mensetmanusman »

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

This is already the case with laptops.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#178

Post by grumbel »

zmmmmm wrote: post #45

The author persistently conflates AR and MR throughout the posting, evaluating the Quest Pro as an AR device but the concluding at the end it's a terrible "MR" device because it failed at their AR tests. It seems to suggest they really think these terms are synonymous but they aren't. While AR aims to enable display and interaction with the real world but with augmentations, MR aims to bring virtual objects into the…

> While AR aims to enable display and interaction with the real world but with augmentations, MR aims to bring virtual objects into the real world and allow you to interact with those.

That's literally the same thing in terms of hardware. If you want to bring virtual objects in the real world, and not have weird z-sorting issues all over the place, you need to have an understanding of the real world, which in turn gives you the possibility to do augmentation.

Beside, MR is just a confusingly overloaded term these days. It can refer to:

* Microsoft's Mixed Reality brand of VR headsets (that completely lack any AR/MR features)

* filming people playing VR games in third person and mixing the game footage into it with LIV or similar software

* doing AR with VR headsets and pass-through cameras, instead of see-through optics (e.g. Lynx R1)

> But why only a single color pass through camera?

Pico4 makes the same mistake. I really don't get it. Lenovo Mirage Solo back in 2018 used two front facing cameras at a proper IPD, and while the image is still quite low resolution, having actual 3D with zero distortion made the thing feel like wearing actual glasses, not like looking at a weird camera feed. It's a ginormous quality improvement for very little extra effort. Using pass-through on that thing is still the only time I could literally forget I was wearing a headset.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#179

Post by grumbel »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #121
trzy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The camera is far off from the eye

That's a non-issue. Lenovo Mirage Solo had a stereo cameras at a proper IPD and the immersion of pass-through on that thing is still by far the best thing I ever experienced in a VR headset. The little offset between the cameras and your eyes is unnoticeable unless you try to touch your nose or do other stuff really close to the headset. And if you really need to, you could get rid of that offset as well (45° mirror and mount the cameras vertical to have them capture the same image as your eye would).

The problem with most other VR headsets is that they either have only a single camera for pass-through or use the tracking cameras that are mounted far away from your eyes. Doing the remapping of perspective in software just doesn't give good results.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#180

Post by wahnfrieden »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #177
wahnfrieden wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is already the case with laptops.

laptops don't track my physical behaviors besides mouse movement and keystrokes. they're far less aware of actual presence, attention or physical activity and are easily maskable
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