210 Degrees of Heads-Up Display: Hands-On With the InfinitEye 80
First time accepted submitter muterobert writes "InfinitEye is a prototype head mounted display that uses dual 1280×800 displays to create a massive 210 degree field of view. I traveled to Toulouse, France to be the first journalist in the world to go hands-on with the unit. These are my thoughts on the trip, the team, and the HMD itself. 'Natural and Panoramic Virtual Reality' is the best phrase I can come up with that summarises the InfinitEye's capabilities. If using the Oculus Rift is like opening the sunroof on a virtual world, the InfinitEye takes the roof clean off — at least if you base your opinion solely on horizontal FOV. But the new HMD also offers 1280×800 per eye in comparison the current Oculus Rift Dev Kit's 640×800 (and only slightly fewer pixels per eye than the Oculus Rift HD prototype)."
Typo in first word of Headline (Score:5, Informative)
This might be a new record or maybe not. The headline currently states "120 Degrees..." when it should say "210 Degrees..." Summary and article both state 210 degrees.
Re:Typo in first word of Headline (Score:4, Informative)
From your citation: "horizontal field of view is as high as 270"
Re:Why not just one ultra wide display (Score:3, Informative)
As the screen is very close to your face, you need an eyepiece. One for each eye.
Re:90s again? (Score:4, Informative)
There was a lot of hype about VR stuff in the 90s, and the whole thing did not get much traction.
They're developing consumer versions that are far superior (and cheaper) than the $1000 minimum 256 color, low FoV junk from the 90's (looking at you VFX-1!). Better, professional units quickly went up to the 10s of thousands of dollars.
Are things significantly better now?
The reason why it's better now is due to cheap high resolution displays (thanks to phones and tablets) and precise accelerometers and gyros.
On the Occulus Rift side, they sidestepped the old design requiring two separate screens by using one screen split between your two eyes and using optics to make the narrow (per eye) screen appear wide. Also the optics concentrate more pixels in the center of your field of view (where you need them most). The distortions created by this are counteracted in software. So this new approach + cheaper displays + cheaper sensors = time for cheap and awesome consumer VR headsets!