Vrvana's Totem HMD Puts a Camera Over Each Eye

The Verge reports that Montreal startup Vrvana has produced a prototype of its promised (and crowd-funded) VR Totem headset. One interesting aspect of the Totem is the inclusion of front-facing cameras, one over each eye, the output of which can be fed to the displays. Reviewer Mike Futter has worn a prototype, and seems to be generally impressed, writing at Game Informer: Vrvana’s device offers 1080p resolution and features 90-degree field of view (the same as the Project Morpheus, but less than the Oculus Rift's 100-degree FOV), an OLED display, and adjustable lenses that can compensate for lens prescription. The HMD is usable by glasses wearers, but the tuning provides an option for those that don't want to wear corrective lenses while in VR. The system connects via HDMI to any source, and can model 3D (side-by-side) from game consoles as virtual reality right now. The Totem is currently compatible with all Oculus developer kit 1 applications, and Vrvana is working on getting DK2 experiences working. The prototype I wore was a good proof of concept, but didn't yet feature the OLED screen. This led to increased persistence due to the LCD. The head tracking also wasn't perfect, requiring some software tuning to prevent drift (something easily surmountable down the road). The clarity was impressive, rivaling some of the best experiences I've had with a Rift or Morpheus.

Still not perfect

[StripedCow]

The problem still with these VR goggles is that my eyes want to adjust its focus on stuff that is nearby, and want to have a distant focal point when stuff is far away.
The danger is of course that when using these goggles often, my eyes may "unlearn" their focus behavior.

Re:

[Zobeid]

If you live long enough, your eyes will "unlearn" their focus behavior. That's why bifocals were invented. Maybe the old-timers will actually have an advantage with VR goggles.

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[X0563511]

Lenses [wikipedia.org] are wonderful things. You can have a display inches from your eye, with a focal point hundreds of meters away.

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[StripedCow]

You missed the point.
The problem is that the focal point SHOULD NOT be 100m away if the object (in the virtual world) is at 10cm distance.

FOV question

[Cinnamon Whirl]

Anyone know what the FOV of a human is?

I assume that moving your eyes while wearing a headset doesn't work, instead, you have to move your whole head. So the FOV ought to be that of a human who is only looking forward. Increasing or decreasing the FOV would surely create dis-orientation for the user.

Re:FOV question

[Thanshin]

The approximate field of view of an individual human eye is 95 away from the nose, 75 downward, 60 toward the nose, and 60 upward, allowing humans to have an almost 180-degree forward-facing horizontal field of view. With eyeball rotation of about 90 (head rotation excluded, peripheral vision included), horizontal field of view is as high as 270. About 12–15 temporal and 1.5 below the horizontal is the optic nerve or blind spot which is roughly 7.5 high and 5.5 wide.

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[FatLittleMonkey]

Now where does this system put a camera over each eye?

Directly in front of each display, so it's in line with the eyes. Bring up any image of the front of the device and they're right fucking there.

Such as the linked article [gameinformer.com].

Poster seems to be confused about what a camera and what a display is.

Someone certainly is.

Snow Crash

[Scholasticus]

Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at onc

Peripheral vision trick

[FatLittleMonkey]

You can buy LED strips (and fancier kits) to stick behind your TV/monitor to create a coloured glow on the wall [oscarliang.net] around your screen which extends the edges of the images to create a greater immersion.

Given that screen-size is the limiting factor in these VR headsets, are any of the manufacturers including this kind of ultra-simple peripheral lighting within the headset? To reduce the blinker effect from the limited FOV.

TV/monitor kits can only use the regular image and extrapolate the edge effects. But with

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[ArcadeMan]

NerveGear [wikia.com] is much better. Now if only reality could catch up with anime science-fiction so that companies could make it available as a consumer product.

Sounds like a great thing for a fur-suiter to have

[nani popoki]

Fur-suiting folks have a big problem with vision. You're usually looking out through mesh fabric, often recessed and colored. Your vision is limited and peripheral vision is almost nonexistent. And that's if your fursona (furry persona) is a predator species. If your character is a prey species, your eyes aren't in the right place, which looks odd. A system (which could be hacked) that provides a camera-and-display for each eye would let one mount the cameras where your line of sight should be and allo

Compared to DK2

[mrjimorg]

Kickstarter begin 3 days be Occulus announced their Crescent Bay which has vastly improved resolution. I have a DK2 and as immersive as it is, the resolution is definitely an issue, and this is the same resolution as the Vrvana one. The cameras are nice though- the ability to switch between the 2 is useful. The only other thing that would be a god-send would be a 2d->3d button for when a 2d image is sent to the vr headset which you are required to see, but due to lens cannot.