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Could we make the web more immersive using a simple optical illusion?

shopify.github.io

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Re: Could we make the web more immersive using a simple optical illusion?

#201

Post by Cpoll »

photochemsyn wrote: post #173
codeulike wrote: post #141

Imagine, for example, opening your favorite brand’s website and being presented with a miniature virtual storefront. You could look at their most popular products as if you were standing on a sidewalk peering into their shop. I imagined this as instructed as was simultaneously bored and depressed. Why does it always have to be about shopping.

It's a relatively invasive technique that requires a computer's camera to record details of a person's face, and that's marketable data that any commercial shopping site would likely collect and sell on to other parties. It'd be much simpler to implement arrow key / spacebar navigation through a 3D scene (still computationally expensive relative to rendering the standard HTML/CSS/JS page), but then that data couldn't…

> invasive technique

It wouldn't be so bad if it were a browser feature, i.e. a website can use an "Eye Tracking" API instead of the Camera API (with permission granted), and get limited data.

Re: Could we make the web more immersive using a simple optical illusion?

#203

Post by dTal »

tapland wrote: post #156
avereveard wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open track with neural net tracker can do what you're asking. The default configuration is a bit wonky but it works very well after some smoothing here and there.

Benefit of trackir is computation being done partially in the device/camera (as opposed to diy clips, which I use for my flight sims). There have recently been some cameras released that don’t require ir-clips and offload the computer some, but feels =\ having a webcam requiring constant camera and/or tracking. But for games it’s great and already in use.

Is it though? My understanding was that TrackIR was nothing more than an IR webcam surrounded by IR LEDs, that also served as a dongle for the freely downloadable "driver" which contained all the tracking code. With OpenTrack, a webcam with the IR filter removed, and a 3d-printed clip, I get results indistinguishable from TrackIR.

A system that uses a visual light camera and no reflector clip will inevitably be slower, as it is a much harder computer vision task. But I don't think hardware acceleration comes into it anywhere.

Re: Could we make the web more immersive using a simple optical illusion?

#204

Post by beebeepka »

chaostheory wrote: post #178
mihaic wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why I think 3D TVs died out a couple years ago: once the novelty factor fades away, you realize that it's actually hindering your initial goal.

Besides the cost, they died because for a large portion of the population and a large portion of the supposed 3D media, the 3D effect didn’t work. It just gave people headaches and eye strain.

Not to mention all of them being locked to 60 Hz input while proudly advertising 600hz refresh rates (mostly plasma). Literal dark ages

Re: Could we make the web more immersive using a simple optical illusion?

#205

Post by VLM »

Has anyone considered the supply vs demand problem or perhaps there's a better way to phrase it?

Yes, that is a VERY attention grabbing presentation for consumers.

Why is it dead in the market?

Lets consider the SUPPLIERS.

I would love to buy antique used electronic gear off ebay with a full high res 3-d model of the actual device I'm buying. Lets say its a Tek 700 series oscilloscope because I love paying insane shipping fees, or maybe I'm just insane (note WRT this being an insane hobby, I need lead-silver solder, vacuum tube tester, etc). I need full photographic high res 3-d models of that particular scope including all its "problem areas" and partially replaced 'black-beauty' capacitors (or are those a HP-only thing?) and partially replaced leaky electrolytics and toasty looking resistors and all kinds of fascinating detail, including exterior shots, and all sub-chassis inside the machine.

The problem is IRL you're pragmatically honestly lucky to get a single real photo of the device you're buying; not uncommon for someone to copy a pix of someone elses device when selling you theirs. "well its close enough' and in a certain defocused abstract sense that's even true...

So ... we've solved the viewer-consumer side but who's going to generate the models for most realistic apps? Like consider clothing sales online. I need a new shirt for the gym, and its cool in an abstract sense that I could see "a model" wearing my future shirt, but I'd be pretty interested in the experience of seeing "me" in the shirt as opposed to the model.

Where is the data going to come from, if/when we have a way to display it? I think this is the business problem where the display tech is stuck...

Re: Could we make the web more immersive using a simple optical illusion?

#207

Post by rchaud »

codeulike wrote: post #141

Imagine, for example, opening your favorite brand’s website and being presented with a miniature virtual storefront. You could look at their most popular products as if you were standing on a sidewalk peering into their shop. I imagined this as instructed as was simultaneously bored and depressed. Why does it always have to be about shopping.

> Why does it always have to be about shopping.

the subdomain of this submission offers a clue about that

Re: Could we make the web more immersive using a simple optical illusion?

#209

Post by mwcampbell »

mike_hearn wrote: post #145

A bit depressing in some ways. This is a pattern I've seen repeatedly, especially in the last 10 years or so - people want to do something innovative but shoot themselves in the foot up front by insisting it has to be in the browser. Then they discover that browsers are incredibly hostile environments for doing innovation projects, and instead of concluding the obvious (we should do it with a desktop app) they either…

In light of the current top comment thread [1], I'm glad the state of browser APIs is holding back this particular "innovation". And I wonder if the friction of distributing and installing desktop apps is actually a good thing, even though it's affecting my current (non-AccessKit) project. It means you have to be really sure that what you're doing deserves to exist outside the good constraints of the browser.

I'm not a fan of VR in general. Some of us aren't comfortable navigating the physical world, and we don't want an emulation of the physical world to infect the digital (or more accurately, hypertext) world that we love and consider our true home. As Jakob Nielsen said in 1998, the Internet can be better than reality [2].

[1]: for posterity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35020429

[2]: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/better-than-reality-a-funda...

Re: Could we make the web more immersive using a simple optical illusion?

#210

Post by jabroni_salad »

codeulike wrote: post #141

Imagine, for example, opening your favorite brand’s website and being presented with a miniature virtual storefront. You could look at their most popular products as if you were standing on a sidewalk peering into their shop. I imagined this as instructed as was simultaneously bored and depressed. Why does it always have to be about shopping.

Here on the internet, there's nearly three things to do!

https://youtu.be/G9FGgwCQ22w?t=183

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