Windows 10 VR standard announced. IHVs creating headsets from $300

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eastmen

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http://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-event-2016/#u59eA3DSLKG3x4OM.97

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http://uploadvr.com/microsoft-reveals-300-vr-headsets-3d-windows-push/

Reports are that it has inside out tracking so this might be running something similar to hololens
 
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Misleading title. MS is championing a standard - other IHVs are providing hardware at different price points.
The company has announced a new line of VR headsets from partners like HP, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, and Acer. They feature 6 degree of freedom (DOF) inside-out tracking and start at $299 though, based on images from the event, they’re tethered devices that connect to PCs and laptops. One of these unspecified devices was used on stage during the event as the company showcased how VR works with the latest version of Windows 10, named the Creator’s Update.
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It's not specified (at least not in the article summary!) where the tracking tech comes from and if it's a standard component or not.

edit: Renamed thread to better reflect the news.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
Misleading title. MS is championing a standard - other IHVs are providing hardware at different price points.
It's not specified (at least not in the article summary!) where the tracking tech comes from and if it's a standard component or not.

edit: Renamed thread to better reflect the news.
Click to expand...

I'm sure there are probably other companies doing research on inside out tracking, but I only know of Microsoft and Oculus at the moment. And Oculus' inside out tracking is still in the prototype stage, although it apparently works pretty well.

Hopefully more knowledgeable people will pop in with names of other companies that might be providing the inside out tracking tech to the OEMs.

Although it wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft were licensing out their inside out tech which should be relatively mature at this point.

Regards,
SB
 
I guess this should be a good indicator about what headset(s) Scorpio is planned to use.
 
Lots of companies involved in computer vision so I imagine there's a few tracking options out there. Kinect 2 is obviously a very good option for HW. Dunno what's developed since. Reliability is going to be the main problem, I'm sure.
 
Using kinect 2 would void the inside-out tech. Unless you mean using it for input.
 
I hope at least one of their partners can come up with a better look than the two shown. They're pretty ugly even for HMDs. Thumbs up for the PSVR welder style mounting though.

Hopefully we get a hands on impressions the tracking solution soon.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
Misleading title. MS is championing a standard - other IHVs are providing hardware at different price points.
It's not specified (at least not in the article summary!) where the tracking tech comes from and if it's a standard component or not.

edit: Renamed thread to better reflect the news.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the fresh coat of paint , was coming in hot and heavy from the stream and rushed to work
 
hughJ said:
Makes sense that there a lot of companies in the PC marketplace that are dying to get into the VR space but have no realistic expectation of building their own vertical ecosystem like Oculus or Valve. Microsoft is in a position to help them.
Click to expand...

It's nice that it'll be standardized to an extent as well making it less likely for people to run into incompatibilities, hopefully. Dropping the entry price is also going to be helpful, but there's still so many questions.

The inside out tracking means room scale interaction is handled easily by the headset. However, there was no indication as to how users were expected to interact with the virtual environment. And the on stage demo during the Windows 10 event didn't really show any interaction.

No specs yet. How fast will the screen refresh? How fast will head position and orientation be updated? What is the resolution of the screens?

I suppose we'll have to wait for OEMs to officially unveil their hardware to find out. If the specs are decent, 300 USD might be a good enough price point for me to get one to play with. At the very least, I'd be able to use an Xbox controller to interact with things similar to the Oculus Rift.

Speaking of the Oculus Rift. I do wonder if there will be a way to use the OEM headsets with either the Oculus controllers or the HTC controllers? And how compatible will they be with the current VR software on PC?

If Microsoft can unify and standardize VR on PC, that would go a long way towards driving adoption similar to how adoption for gaming on PC exploded after DirectX matured.

Regards,
SB
 
Relevant Microsoft Research paper published last week:
Proxy-guided Image-based Rendering for Mobile Devices

VR headsets and hand-held devices are not powerful enough to render complex scenes in real-time. A server can take on the rendering task, but network latency prohibits a good user experience. We present a new image-based rendering (IBR) architecture for masking the latency. It runs in real-time even on very weak mobile devices, supports modern game engine graphics, and maintains high visual quality even for large view displacements. We propose a novel server-side dual-view representation that leverages an optimally-placed extra view and depth peeling to provide the client with coverage for filling disocclusion holes. This representation is directly rendered in a novel wide-angle projection with favorable directional parameterization. A new client-side IBR algorithm uses a pre-transmitted level-of-detail proxy with an encaging simplification and depth-carving to maintain highly complex geometric detail. We demonstrate our approach with typical VR / mobile gaming applications running on mobile hardware. Our technique compares favorably to competing approaches according to perceptual and numerical comparisons.
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PDF: Link
 
Silent_Buddha said:
It's nice that it'll be standardized to an extent as well making it less likely for people to run into incompatibilities, hopefully. Dropping the entry price is also going to be helpful, but there's still so many questions.

The inside out tracking means room scale interaction is handled easily by the headset. However, there was no indication as to how users were expected to interact with the virtual environment. And the on stage demo during the Windows 10 event didn't really show any interaction.

No specs yet. How fast will the screen refresh? How fast will head position and orientation be updated? What is the resolution of the screens?

I suppose we'll have to wait for OEMs to officially unveil their hardware to find out. If the specs are decent, 300 USD might be a good enough price point for me to get one to play with. At the very least, I'd be able to use an Xbox controller to interact with things similar to the Oculus Rift.

Speaking of the Oculus Rift. I do wonder if there will be a way to use the OEM headsets with either the Oculus controllers or the HTC controllers? And how compatible will they be with the current VR software on PC?

If Microsoft can unify and standardize VR on PC, that would go a long way towards driving adoption similar to how adoption for gaming on PC exploded after DirectX matured.

Regards,
SB
Click to expand...

what if santa cruz ( I think that's the oculus prototypes name) is just a ms vr headset ?
 
eastmen said:
what if santa cruz ( I think that's the oculus prototypes name) is just a ms vr headset ?
Click to expand...

Was thinking that myself. The fact that Oculus described that prototype as a another product category (as opposed to an update or revision of the Rift) seemed to hint that it's more than just a mere proof of concept or technical exercise. Also consider that every prototype that Oculus has shown publicly in the last few years has ended up being released as a product.
 
eastmen said:
what if santa cruz ( I think that's the oculus prototypes name) is just a ms vr headset ?
Click to expand...

It's possible, but I don't believe MS uses 4 cameras for its inside out tracking. Then again nothing says they couldn't have increased the camera count to make the tracking more robust. Or perhaps to use 4 cheaper cameras.

Hopefully we'll get more information soon.

Regards,
SB
 
Silent_Buddha said:
It's possible, but I don't believe MS uses 4 cameras for its inside out tracking. Then again nothing says they couldn't have increased the camera count to make the tracking more robust. Or perhaps to use 4 cheaper cameras.

Hopefully we'll get more information soon.

Regards,
SB
Click to expand...

Remember for HoloLens the user can see outside of the helmet . With VR you can't. So perhaps they need more cameras to track your surroundings so you don't trip over anything
 
More annoucement coming in December and yes the OEM HDMs are co-developed with Microsoft and will use Hololens/Kinect tech.
http://www.polygon.com/features/201...oft-headsets-aim-to-democratize-mixed-reality
He declined to say what some of the specs are for the devices like field of view and resolution, but said those details will be announced at an event in December. He did have some details he could share though.

Kipman pointed out that Microsoft has been shipping the HoloLens, which has inside-out technology built into it, for months. That same technology, he said, is being used in these new, affordable third-party headsets.
"It allows you to freely move through space safely," he said. "This is the first created for the real world.
"This is the thing that people are saying is the future. But it's something we are shipping with the Windows 10 Creators Update" this coming spring.
"Nobody in the world has this. This is HoloLens technology."
Click to expand...
 
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