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Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

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Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#131

Post by LukeWalsh »

The product (marketing) decision to focus on AR passthrough does seem really strange. If I was going to use a VR device for work, then, maybe if the resolution was high enough it could be nice to have much more space, but, I'd really only care that I'm not bumping into things. I'm not exactly sure why this AR route is being pushed before it's ready -- living in the world through cameras seems like a much harder problem to be solved after getting the base VR case to work.

IMO the more interesting business cases would be around simulated environments even as simple as viewing 360 videos for places where workers would be expected to know what's going on when they enter.

Thanks for the detailed analysis!

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#132

Post by Zee2 »

wvenable wrote: post #111
Zee2 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone close to this in the industry, I definitely agree. I also really don't know why he decided to deemphasize the perspective and depth correctness so much. He mentions it here: > In this case, they were willing to sacrifice image quality to try to make the position of things in the real world agree with where virtual objects appear. To some degree, they have accomplished this goal. But the image quality and l…

In a regular Quest 2 (not the pro as discussed here) you can use pass-through and actually reach out and grab a glass of water and drink it. It's super impressive and actually makes the pass-through useful for the things that you use pass-through for. Would it be nice to be able to actually read text and not have distortion when objects get too close? Yes, of course. But it's not necessary.

Exactly. Reading text or having 20/20 vision is so, so, so not the most important part of passthrough! Comfort, accuracy when reaching out and grabbing things, walking/running, avoiding obstacles on the ground, pets/humans, etc. Non-depth-correct passthrough risks all of these things.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#133

Post by Zee2 »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #118
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…

AR will never be able to mix depth to objects with the real world due to the physics of image planes. MR could do that, so it might be one key difference.

Full lightfield AR displays would have no issue with this. Even some hypothetical giga-sandwich of waveguide planes like a Magic Leap 1 on steroids could do an effective approximation of this.

(Assuming by "mix depth to objects with the real world" you mean "having virtual objects alongside real objects with convincing depth alignment")

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#134

Post by vineyardmike »

zmmmmm wrote: post #101
semireg wrote: post #79

I’m not a AR/VR bull but I think Apple’s position is extremely underestimated. It’s almost like every Apple product has been developed and refined for the future AR/VR moment. Custom silicon. Fast camera HDR. LiDAR. People/scene/room/boundary detection. AirPod Max fit and finish. Spatial audio. 50 other things… All in the service of AR/VR.

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.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#135

Post by vineyardmike »

kibwen wrote: post #106
Bilal_io wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally think Apple is very capable. The issue is they'll build a good enough VR then put it within their walled garden.

Having used Apple software, I'm honestly not convinced of Apple's ability to deliver anything half as sophisticated as VR.

Having used some of apples existing AR stuff… I would believe they can ship their existing AR stuff and figure out how to make 2 screens that are nearly identical display the data.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#136

Post by vineyardmike »

jupp0r wrote: post #55

In spite of all the negativity, I'm super excited about the future of AR. - being able to see in extremely wide spectrum bands compared to human eyesight - being able to see in higher dynamic ranges than the human eye - being able to magnify little details and thus see with a higher spatial resolution than the human eye - all of this while enhancing your field of view with lots of other interesting information

None of these seem like things any company is actually working on…? Or at least no rumor has ever mentioned.

(Yes thermal cameras exist, but not really as an AR overlay)

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#137

Post by nomel »

Zee2 wrote: post #68
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…

As someone close to this in the industry, I definitely agree. I also really don't know why he decided to deemphasize the perspective and depth correctness so much. He mentions it here: > In this case, they were willing to sacrifice image quality to try to make the position of things in the real world agree with where virtual objects appear. To some degree, they have accomplished this goal. But the image quality and l…

I’ll admit, I have completely cooked breakfast (eggs and toast, rummaging, flipping and all) with the Quest Pro passthrough, while watching a video on a giant virtual screen floating in my kitchen. The depth accuracy is very impressive.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#138

Post by zmmmmm »

sdiupIGPWEfh wrote: post #115
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…

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…

I don't begrudge people getting grumpy about terms evolving through gradual misuse over time. It's certainly annoying. What I would say though is that if you have specific subsets of functionality that demarcate clearly through various dimensions - how hard they are to do, the type of technology needed, the typical use cases and real world value they create - then you really need some way to distinguish them if we are going to talk about it.

Alternatively, if you are going to just stick to one hyper general term then you can't really complain that product X is bad at Y because it doesn't do every single thing the general term Y encompasses. Language is fluid for a reason - it adapts to our needs to define and distinguish things. In this case, the Quest Pro does a subset of things quite well, while completely leaving other aspects of AR on the table. Whatever we refer to that subset as, it's not really valid to then say it's generically bad just because we don't have good words to describe what it does do.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#139

Post by makeitdouble »

zmmmmm wrote: post #98
mb7733 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Would you mind giving user-facing examples to illustrate the difference? As in something you consider AR but not MR and vice-versa. I've googled a bit but I don't understand the distinction between "enable display and interaction with…

Consider something like Gravity Sketch [0] as MR. You are designing a virtual object and it is useful to bring it into the real world to (a) collaborate on it with others in a shared workspace and (b) envision it within its real context. For example, you can design a chair and actually place it in a living room while you are working on it to see how it looks. An AR example would be the classic overlay of text on a si…

Not working in the field, I’m also having a hard time to grasp the difference. Is one MR because it’s 3D and the other AR because of 2D ? And is the collaboration part a defining feature ?

Where would you set Pokemon Go’s “AR view” [0] kind of implementations for instance ? (First link I found was for a headset, but I’m also actually curious how you qualify the phone only version of it)

Or what would it change if in you Gravity Sketch example each user would be seeing colors or rendering adapted to their vision/preferences making it a separate experience for each of them ?

[0] https://youtu.be/48fVUHnR5I8

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#140

Post by oogabooga13 »

Having a virtual movie theater has been the killer feature for me. I sit in on my comfy couch and stream movies from my computer into the headset. Awesome. For me it is better than buying a real TV for the purpose of movie watching.

Also VR Chat (also an app) has been awesome for connecting and talking with new people. Environments from orbiting high above the earth in space to a rooftop restauraunt in Paris make it fun to spend a few hours with new people.

As other have said, inside other VR application there is a lot of "neat" "potential" but hampered execution due to software, hardware, or both. I always tell people we've made some gigantic leaps but we're still in the early stages.

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