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Displays Technology

What It's Like To Spend 40-50 Hours In VR Every Week (immersed.team) 62

Posted by BeauHD from the show-and-tell dept.
Technologist, physicist, and virtual reality professional Paul Tomlinson shares what it's like to spend 4,500+ hours "banging away at real work on virtual screens." Slashdot reader Keighvin shares an excerpt from his report, with the caption: "Portions of the 'metaverse' have leaked into 2021 from the future." Tomlinson writes: I float in space, surrounded on all sides by a grand view of the Milky Way Galaxy. A movie-theater-sized screen hangs before me, gently curved, everything at the perfect viewing distance. Eight different panes glitter with code, facets of a technological jewel granting views into the brain of a system responsible for moving tens of millions of dollars a day. A communications console canted like a drafting table at my fingertips holds a workshop of quick-fire exchanges with my colleagues, my meeting calendar, various API references, and camera feeds of the 'real' world. To my left, abutting the mammoth array of code, a two-story tall portrait display shows the specifications for the task at hand atop an ever-present Spotify playlist. I crank the tunes and get into my flow.

But this isn't an excerpt from some Ernest Cline novel -- this is my every-day experience. I'll spend 40-50 hours in Virtual Reality this week, like I did last week and every (work) week for the last 2 1/2 years. It's not just fun and games -- there are plenty of those, along with exercise, meditation, creativity, socializing, etc. -- but for this article, I'm only focusing on (and counting) the work. [...] It's not a stretch to say I'm in the top few percent of VR users on the planet; I've spent much time watching developments in the field and extrapolating future possibilities. I don't insist on my version of the future, but I hope what I've seen is worth sharing. Keighvin asks: "How close are we to ditching screens? What would it take for you to work in VR or AR? What are the deal breakers?"
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What It's Like To Spend 40-50 Hours In VR Every Week

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  • Normal people wouldn't stay anywhere near that in VR until glasses weigh under 150g and the images are crisp with no screendoor effect or blur/fuzz.

    • Normal people wouldn't stay anywhere near that in VR until glasses weigh under 150g and the images are crisp with no screendoor effect or blur/fuzz.

      I agree. Also I wear bifocals so until the VR system can be worn over glasses or be adjusted to compensate for my (very bad) eyesight, I will not be using them at all

      • Re:Impossible (Score:4, Informative)

        by caseih ( 160668 ) on Monday September 27, 2021 @08:04PM (#61839263)

        VR goggles can be worn over glasses. I wear glasses with the HTC Vive. And if you read the article you'll see that you can buy corrective lens inserts for the goggles. You won't need bifocals though. Bifocals are for use in the real world where you have to change focus from near to far. In VR goggles, there is one focus regardless of apparent depth. This is part of what makes it so nauseating for some to use (and causes me really bad eye headaches). But if you put corrective lens inserts into your VR goggles, you'll be able to see just fine.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Scutter ( 18425 )

          I have an HTC Vive that ruined two pairs of very expensive glasses for me. The headset lenses were so close to my eyeglass lenses that they rubbed scratches in the center before I realized what was happening. So, yes, they *technically* fit over eyeglasses, but you need to be super careful with them. Or you can spend an additional thousand bucks for a corrective insert for the headset. Or, they could just make them fit over eyeglasses properly.

          • That seems more like user error to me. I have used several different sets of glasses with no issues inside three different VRs.
            • Maybe it is head size? I found I just couldn't really wear my glasses comfortably in my rift. I could get them in OK, but after 20-30 minutes very uncomfortable, and any movement of the headset made them feel like I needed to push them up.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by caseih ( 160668 )

            I haven't ruined any pairs of glasses, but I have done worse. I scratched the lens of the HTC vive. Very annoying. If I ever did more than 15 minutes at a time, I would get corrective lens inserts and ditch the glasses.

          • Sounds like maybe you weren't aware you can adjust the eye relief [youtube.com] to make room for larger frames. It's pretty easy to overlook the adjustment if you don't know it's there. Also the prescription lens inserts aren't nearly that expensive... You can find them for under $100.

            • Watching that video, I wonder if there is the same type of adjustment for my Cosmo Elite. I usually go without my glasses, and seem to do ok, but it would probably cause less strain to wear my glasses with the VR.

              I'll have to look into the prescription lenses when I hit the eye doc again for new glasses.

              • The Cosmos Elite does not have an eye relief adjustment. Most headsets without eye relief let remove the padding/facial interface and have various sizes available for different face shapes/glasses. On the Quest 2 they provide you with a small plastic spacer that goes behind the padding [youtu.be] to make room for larger glasses. I'm not very familiar with Cosmos but I assume it has something similar. I did notice HTC sells foam inserts [vive.com] that might do the trick.

        • I ruined a new Valve Index headset because my glasses frame scratched the lens. Fortunately Valve guys are awesome and replaced it for free. But if you need glasses, my advice would be buying VR lenses from VROptician or similar.

          • I'm a little surprised you didn't come across that info before trying your VR headset with glasses on. Before I got an Oculus Rift S, I did a search to figure out if I could wear my glasses with it. The information I found was that depending on the thickness of your glasses, it is possible. But that it is very easy to scratch the VR lenses this way. Even if the glasses do fit while you're wearing it, you have a chance to scratch it every time you put the headset on or take it off. Like you, I ran acros

      • Current VR headsets have screens that are always at a fixed distance (optically) so bifocals are unnecessary. In the worst case you only need to use need single vision lens. Typically VR lens project the screens so they appear around 2 meters away from you so if you see clearly at that distance you wouldn't need to use classes at all in VR.

        That being said most VR headsets can accommodate the user wearing glasses without issue. If you have unusually large frames most headsets also have optimal adapters to ma

        • Would it be possible for the headset to adjust the image so people wouldn't have to wear glasses at all (for people who can't see at 2 meters)? It seems like perhaps one could input the numbers from one's prescription and the headset could adjust the image such that it appears in focus for a person with that particular prescription.

          • Yes, it should be possible.

            There are some older phone based VR headsets that let you adjust the distance between lens and screen which shifted the focal plane as a result. They had limited mobility but it did allow a small subset of people who wear glasses not to need them in VR. Oculus has been working on varifocal lens [youtu.be] that allow you to move the focal plane on the fly via software in real time by tracking the users eye movements. It should be trivial incorporate a large amount of lens prescription into th

  • FFS (Score:3)

    by ceoyoyo ( 59147 ) on Monday September 27, 2021 @07:46PM (#61839213)

    What is undoubtedly a super expensive VR setup, and what do they do? Recreate their office.

    "Ditching screens." Sure, if "ditching" means getting up real close to them.

    • The article has a couple paragraphs criticizing that tendency. In his VR field of vision, the several monitors he uses are the size of an IMAX screen.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        There was a guy in one of my old offices who demanded a big 4k screen when they hired him, then sat really close to it. Easily as big as an IMAX screen to him.

    • What is undoubtedly a super expensive VR setup, and what do they do? Recreate their office.

      Well, you have to understand - he's a VR professional.

      • See, I think they kinda missed an important detail about that in the article - I have a fair amount of experience with VR, hence the write-up, but my profession is everyday programming (old school programming, even - I work at a Perl shop these days).

        I just happen to do it in VR.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Bigbutt ( 65939 )

          I've been on the lookout for something like this. I've checked out one of the other offerings (not Immersed) and wasn't too impressed. With this article, I'm checking out Immersed with my Quest 2. I do think the headset weight will be one of the issues but we'll see.

          My current desktop setup is a center 43" 4k monitor with four 23" 1080 Acer monitors arranged around the center screen (two on two in landscape and one on either side in portrait). About a 6k setup right now. I've done the multiple monitor setup

    • Re:FFS (Score:4, Informative)

      by Keighvin ( 166133 ) on Monday September 27, 2021 @08:48PM (#61839413)

      Oculus Quest v2 ($400 version, went with the higher storage capacity), augmented with a facial interface foam upgrade ($30), halo mount ($50), and prescription lenses ($70). So yeah, I'm $550 into my VR gear, which puts it on par with some PC VR solutions.

      The rig is capable, but not *amazing* on its own - it takes babysitting to make it work well, just like any early technology pushed to its limits. It's perfectly usable for a very narrow subset of the population - and that's a good start for "what's next" as it continues to develop.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Ouch. I've demoed an Oculus Quest at a conference. I'll keep my 4k screen for work thanks.

        Would be fun to flight sim with it though.

  • I wonder what kind of glasses he wears now?

    • Prescription hasn't changed over that time, so things seem steady to me. The focal plane is further than most desktop monitors, but I also make sure to get good eye exercise outside of VR, just like any full-time computer user should. Walking the dog several times a day helps.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jhecht ( 143058 )
        Your eyes can habituate to VR if you spend too long in it, so walking the dog several times a day should help. However, people's sensitivity to VR sickness can vary widely, and you are likely among the less sensitive. (Search for "barfogenic zone" if you want to read more about VR sickness.) There is good evidence that kids who spend most of their time indoors and have little outdoor time -- where their eyes can focus on infinity -- are likely to become myopic, so you don't want your kids spending as much
  • I played through the newish valve game doing about 20 a week, and after just a couple hours would get a headache from my eyes adjusting.. I don't see this as plausible for a normal person.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dohzer ( 867770 )

      My friends complain of headaches, along with getting nauseous, etc. Can't say I've ever had either.

      I feel more limited by the time I actually want to devote to doing one thing. It doesn't matter if that's in Half-Life 2 or Half-Life Alyx.

    • There shouldn't be any eye-adjusting issues for VR "office work" so long as you've properly calibrated it for your pupil distance, and put your screens at an apparent depth that matches your headset's focal depth.

      I suspect most of the eye issues are related to the fact that almost nothing in a more open VR world is going to be at an apparent depth matching the fixed focal depth, so your eyes' convergence and focus depths are perpetually mismatched.

      Of course there's also the fact that *everything* is at the

  • Personally I'd like to give this a shot... (Score:3)

    by Red_Chaos1 ( 95148 ) on Monday September 27, 2021 @08:28PM (#61839339)

    I don't have the vertigo issues some other folks have. I put goggles on and played Robo Recall without issue. Enjoyed the hell out of it, except for the clunky controls, being tethered, and having a limited physical movement space. I also used to play my VirtualBoy for hours on end without eye fatigue or whatever. I'd lay down and let it rest on my face, the leg tips resting on my chest and keeping it from falling off.

    It has definitely occurred to me that I could replace numerous expensive panels for a single modestly expensive headset and technically have a work space with as many "monitors" as I needed, arranged precisely how I wanted. My biggest worry is shit like what Facebook has done with the Oculus, requiring it be tied to an FB account which is subject to 30 day bans on a whim for $deity knows how many poorly perceived slights to the community guidelines. I do wonder just how well the resolutions hold up to such a thing. HTC has a headset that is 2,448x2,448 per eye, and a Chinese company named Pimax has one that is 4K (2106p) per eye, but is that enough to do a virtual desktop with multiple monitors?

    • Not that I would purchase any hardware tied to Facebook, but bans happen because of other people and their feewingz. When I am playing VR, it's to escape from other people.

    • is that enough to do a virtual desktop with multiple monitors

      I own a Quest 2 (1832 x 1920 per eye) and it definitely can't match the dpi of my 32" UHD main monitor or even the 25" QHD side monitors (although this is closer). Interacting with my desktop projected in VR is uncomfortable due to the lower dpi. To make it comfortable I would have to enlarge the virtual screen quite a bit and would need to move my head far more to sharply see the same number of pixels as I do IRL. So for me, the resolution of the Quest 2 is definitely not high enough to be a proper desktop

  • It can't be any worse (Score:5, Funny)

    by t0qer ( 230538 ) on Monday September 27, 2021 @08:33PM (#61839361) Homepage Journal

    Than spending a week in an RV with my wife and kids.

  • Way to become blind. (Score:4, Informative)

    by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Monday September 27, 2021 @08:41PM (#61839381)
    Your eyes need a variety of short and long distances to maintain their ability to focus in all conditions and remain healthy. Keeping a VR screen so close to your eyes for tens of hours every week will put the progression myopia into turbo mode and eventually leave you blind.

    • Re:Way to become blind. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Keighvin ( 166133 ) on Monday September 27, 2021 @09:08PM (#61839471)

      The effective focal distance is somewhere between 1.3m and 2m, so it doesn't do anything to aggravate myopia - in fact, it's much better in that regard than traditional monitors, whose fixed focal distance tends to be less than 1m.

      You're correct though that a range of focal distances is required for good eye health. Glasses wearers such as myself already struggle with this challenge. The same principles and recommendations apply whether it's a virtual monitor or a physical one - exercise your eyes! Walking the puppy several times a day is particularly helpful in this regard.

    • Citation needed. There's ample evidence that the eyes prefer to focus at a natural focal distance which is precisely what VR provides. There's also ample evidence that the brain needs to develop a link between focal distance and convergence and that VR breaks this link through what is called the vergence-accommodation conflict. There's also studies that indicate that this is only an issue until you hit your teens after which your brain is accustomed to using eyes correctly.

      So please, as a VR user myself I'm

      • please give citate if you can. im interseted

        • A cite to what? The Vergence-accommodation conflict affects children more? That hasn't been properly tested, but sits on the back of other research such as https://journals.lww.com/optvi... [lww.com] that shows children are more susceptible to accommodation variations vs adults presumably because the brain takes a while to learn vergence-accommodation as it does any task involving muscle memory while developing.

          That study also was the basis of Oculus's original recommendation not to put children under 11 in VR. Mind

          • Kids snuck into theaters showing R rated movies when I was growing up. It was almost a rite of passage.

            I highly doubt Facebook's 13+ requirement would be more than a speed bump for today's kids.

            • Oh absolutely not. I was only trying to point out the recommendation for children to not use VR predates Facebook's account requirements. Ultimately there are some things we should leave up to parenting rather than tech companies. But the advice to parents was: kids shouldn't use VR, and VAC was an off discussed reason back when the earlier generation headsets hit the market.

    • As others commented, the lenses inside the VR goggles put the optical distance of the screen at somewhere around 2m.
      What you mention about the range/ variation of distances makes total sense. I have found that when I pick up my phone first thing (non working days allow for that), and for to long, more than just a few minutes, I may have trouble with distance focusing throughout the day. Sometimes, after using a computer monitor a lot throughout the day, I also have that, perhaps not as badly. Using reading

  • Cool (Score:3)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Monday September 27, 2021 @09:04PM (#61839453)

    But I can pull a cheapo laptop out of my briefcase and work at the local coffee shop.

    granting views into the brain of a system responsible for moving tens of millions of dollars a day

    I've got a picture around here somewhere of Warren Buffet sitting in a Burger King, talking with some of his staff.

  • This amazing experience requires you to wear the funny glasses at which point you will end up building a conventional monitor setup.

    Get it down to something that feels no different than wearing normal glasses and people will adopt this in droves.

  • Wow, that was an enjoyable article. I know this is /. but: go read.

    He's living the dream. He does mention at the end that his setup is a "house of cards" built of alpha- and beta-level products. I can only imagine the hours he spent/spends getting everything to work together. But it's a house of cards he has made stable enough to actually use in his full-time job. Amazing stuff. Living the dream.

  • Is there an open source alternative to Immersed?

    • I haven't looked into it too much, but below someone suggests SimulaVR, which on its home page talks about Linux VR experience. Perhaps it is open source?

      I was also wondering this, as I would like to get my Cosmos working in Ubuntu, and it looks like this software does this. I will have to look into it when I get home.

  • I'm also looking forward to the day I will be able to code in VR, surrounded by nice virtual screens in my perfect, immersive VR layout. But it's not there yet for me.
    I use a Valve Index (refuse to buy hardware that needs to be connected to a social media account), and I love it for gaming, sometimes also watching movies in a virtual theater. But it's not good enough for working long hours yet. The device is too heavy and will begin to hurt at specific contact points after 2 hours. The resolution is good, b

    • The HTC Cosmos/Vive take care of some of these issues, they don't need social media connections, and have outward facing cameras for tracking.

      The keyboard and mouse can be made visible with the outward facing cameras of many of the headsets, or there is also the option of having a webcam pointing at the keyboard if you really need a fixed location camera.

      I touch type so it doesn’t matter that I can’t see my keyboard, but there are options for bringing it into the environment by using a virtual overlay, or (soon) opening a “portal” by way of the headset’s tracking cameras to see a video of your surroundings (FaceBook’s own Horizon Workrooms uses this feature right now).

      -TFA (there are five links in that paragraph that point to other articles that describe how to do some of these.)

      As for the weight and contact pressure, th

  • Unfortunately just an infomercial for immersed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by someothername ( 896169 ) on Tuesday September 28, 2021 @06:53AM (#61840453)
    I read TFA all the way through, very well written, plenty of details for a geek to get close to emulating, had me on the hook. Started to look at the current pricing for the various bits and pieces, got to immersed and it it $15/month, a subscription that is quite expensive for as the article states quite wonky and needs lots of fiddling to even get to work well. This seems like just an infomercial for immersed. It is a cool setup I would love to try as I have a similar job that would do well with a much larger virtual desktop like this to keep it all open and available to stay in the mind space. My employer would never pay for it, and would not allow it on their hardware, but for now it would probably work with the HVD setup used in our current remote stance. But one piece of the setup alone is $15 / month, more than most entertainment subscriptions, or even Office 365, very over priced for what looks to be very beta software.

    • You can honestly get by just fine on their Free tier, which supports as many screens as the computer recognizes. HDMI dummy plugs fill that niche just fine, which has the added benefit of shifting the memory and processing overhead for those fake displays to the GPU, which helps with overall system performance.

      There are alternatives to Immersed as well, and the SumulaVR project is worth keeping an eye on.

    • As someone else has already replied: they have a free tier. Certainly good enough to try it out.

      Anyway, if you actually found this solution worthwhile, $15/month is nothing. By far the bigger investment is the headset, with necessary comfort. If your employer won't fund them, you can still likely deduct them from your taxes as a business expense. Employer not allowing this on their hardware? I don't know too many employers who are that strict about what you put on your laptop, as long as you can at least

  • WHY? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TJHook3r ( 4699685 ) on Tuesday September 28, 2021 @08:25AM (#61840655)
    I read most of the article I think and I still don't have a clue what this person is actually doing! Just stop blathering on about the technical specs and tell me whether a huge spreadsheet rendered in VR is any more usable than the same thing on 30" dual monitors. Or Visual Studio. Are there any applications for a regular desk-jockey like me and most of your potential customers?

    • One thing I think would be nice is the ability to swap environments in my home office. Sure, sometimes I'm working on a task that only needs one or two monitors, but sometimes I would love to be able to swap over to three or even four when working on a large music project. Lyrics on one monitor, tracks on another, mixer on another, and a notes file on another. And I just plain don't have the room to do that with my limited home office space, even if I had the money to buy that many large format monitors.

    • Literally any application you can currently run, you could run in this environment. The important difference is the environment, not the applications. The advantages, according to the author are:
      • Having huge screens far away - amore pleasant, expansive experience
      • Having total control over the position and contents of those screens - no physical constraints,
      • Having as many screens as you want - again, no physical constraints.
      • Being isolated in a virtual environment, thus reducing distractions from the real wo

    • the WHY is at the end of the article. I recommend scrolling down and reading that part before reading the entire (long) article. Summarized here as:

      Cost - VR gear provides cheaper 'monitors' than physical monitors.

      Focus - an obvious trade-off, but no distractions when you are plugged in.

      Flexibility - screens can be any size, shape, or resolution; can be changed dynamically based on task; unlimited by the physical space you are in.

      Accessibility - if you need accessibility accommodations for any reason, VR p

    • If you have to ask then, clearly, you do not possess the sophistication to appreciate the Emperor's new clothes!

  • The first thing - must VR your surroundings (Score:3)

    by tacokill ( 531275 ) on Tuesday September 28, 2021 @01:17PM (#61841709)
    I saw a guy on steam do this. He wanted to play virtual games inside of VR. ie: think VMWare inside a VR instance. But that's not what was interesting. What's interesting is that he quickly figured out that he needed to VR his surroundings because he kept bumping into things as he moved around the room. Once he did that, he practiclly lived in VR all the time. He found VR to be MUCH more funcitonal than real world for what he wanted to do (play arcade games)

    It was interesting to me that part of his solution required him to create a VR of his surroundings. Without that, the usefulness of VR was limited for him

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