Living In a Sci-Fi Movie - Eyes-On With The Hololens

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Living In a Sci-Fi Movie - Eyes-On With The Hololens

Eyes-on impressions of Microsoft's HoloLens, it's first foray into the world of augmented reality.

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[Frezzato]

I loved the Minecraft demonstration video, and I hate to say this but the Hololens is simply wasted in terms of gaming. The possible applications for this technology really don't align with games (I think). There's something here with so much more potential; it's just like how it was with Microsoft's Surface. Not the tablet of course. I mean the giant honking smart table [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRU3NemA95k] that MS created and then seemingly forgot about.

It's still freaking cool though. It's like living in the future.

 

[laggyteabag]

Seems really cool, but something like that will likely cost an arm and a leg, so I somehow doubt that it will get much mainstream support. It seeks like a gimmick. An expensive gimmick at that, but damn, I would love to try one.

 

[fix-the-spade]

So, based on your experience, can we assume that the Hololens is quite dependent on having an accurately calibrated pupillary distance for each user?

Something I've wondered about for the Rift is how they get around that without causing massive depth perception issues and the resulting dizziness/spew trails. Although it is fun to watch people keel over.

We'll have to see if they can fix the FOV issue and if this thing will require a dedicated projection surface to work on, I have to assume they will and it won't or this thing will be dead on arrival.

 

[s0osleepie]

So, based on your experience, can we assume that the Hololens is quite dependent on having an accurately calibrated pupillary distance for each user?

Something I've wondered about for the Rift is how they get around that without causing massive depth perception issues and the resulting dizziness/spew trails. Although it is fun to watch people keel over.

Simply based on the technology alone, I would guess it should be. The Oculus Rift added an an IPD configuration utility back in 2013 and I would imagine the HoloLens would need a similar utility before it ships. Eyes can converge within a wide range of deviation of images split between them, so our bodies are usually forgiving when it comes to AR and VR tech, but proper overlay on to real world objects and precise eye tracking for the precision commands they showed off at the E3 press conference demo, would require IPD measurement. We're all so different, IPD measurement would be the only real way to optimize the experience.

 

[RicoADF]

Hmm, I could see these working for tabletop games as well, nice idea. Wonder if anyone will create something for it.

 

[BeerTent]

I loved the Minecraft demonstration video, and I hate to say this but the Hololens is simply wasted in terms of gaming. The possible applications for this technology really don't align with games (I think). There's something here with so much more potential; it's just like how it was with Microsoft's Surface. Not the tablet of course. I mean the giant honking smart table [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRU3NemA95k] that MS created and then seemingly forgot about.

It's still freaking cool though. It's like living in the future.

I had a big typed out response to your mention of smart tables.

But an NDA prohibits me from saying much about it in public.

Other companies are building the tables for the education sector, and there are tutorials to build your own cheap table using the projector/Acrylic method too. Feel free to PM me if you're interested, but you need money to burn.

 

[Frezzato]

I had a big typed out response to your mention of smart tables.

But an NDA prohibits me from saying much about it in public.

Other companies are building the tables for the education sector, and there are tutorials to build your own cheap table using the projector/Acrylic method too. Feel free to PM me if you're interested, but you need money to burn.

Oh thanks man. I've actually seen that sort of stuff before, like the Promethean ActivTable [http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/server300/ati03nf/products/556/images/1503/activtable_v2_with_activities_web__91079.1405465136.960.960.jpg?c=2], which is really just an HDTV with the guts of a PC squashed underneath the surface, made with a touch capacitive screen. HP made a touch overlay for large TVs as well.

The Promethean table was a low-performance novelty and simply didn't have any unique software to make it worthwhile; the HP touch TV was even worse as it had NO custom software available. I suspect it was meant to be used as an interactive commercial display, but we used it as a regular TV. This was several years ago so maybe things have improved.

Considering all of that, Microsoft's efforts seem that much more impressive. Like Holodeck-level impressive.

 

[FalloutJack]

You'd better be aaugmenting the glasses I'm wearing, as well, or no sale.

 

[Strazdas]

The way this is being described wounds like an actual augmentated reality and like something that could be useful (outside of gaming too). Then again, Google Glass was described in the same manner and look what a shit product that ended up to be.

You'd better be aaugmenting the glasses I'm wearing, as well, or no sale.

What if it could be put on top of the glasses so you could use it with any glasses you want? Like a snap-on or something?

 

[FalloutJack]

You'd better be aaugmenting the glasses I'm wearing, as well, or no sale.

What if it could be put on top of the glasses so you could use it with any glasses you want? Like a snap-on or something?

Funny story, Straddy, I was just at INPEX - an international convention of inventions - today, and there was a guy there who had created durable snap-on shade-lenses (indivudual ones for each lens) which immediately made me think of this. I brought up the topic on him and asked him what he thought. He said he'd keep that in mind. I don't know if he'd really pursue that since he was just making a niche product, but solving this particular issue for people like me would probably make him a nice sack of cash.

 

[CrystalShadow]

So, based on your experience, can we assume that the Hololens is quite dependent on having an accurately calibrated pupillary distance for each user?

Something I've wondered about for the Rift is how they get around that without causing massive depth perception issues and the resulting dizziness/spew trails. Although it is fun to watch people keel over.

We'll have to see if they can fix the FOV issue and if this thing will require a dedicated projection surface to work on, I have to assume they will and it won't or this thing will be dead on arrival.

The oculus definitely depended on measuring IPD using a calibration utility, and correctly entering the values in the config utility. (or the demo software itself for older SDK releases).
There is a limit though based on the design of the lens assembly and the like.

The final consumer version apparently has adjustable IPD by physically moving the assemblies involved, which would probably increase the range, but it would still require software configuration.

The Fove headset which is currently on kickstarter (whose primary additional feature appears to be infrared eye tracking), claims to be able to use the eye tracking system/ IR camera rig to measure IPD and other parameters without manual calibration, which is interesting to note for systems which have some degree of eye tracking capability to them...

It does remain an open question how well such systems work.