Sony HMZ-T1 VR Headset

[MACADEMIC]

I wonder why Sony did not include an electronic gyro and accelerometer in the unit. It would have allowed 1:1 headtracking. Could imagine though that they've extensively tried and tested this.

Perhaps a reason why they didn't is that the optics only work properly when all is precisely in place and that head movements would lead to too much position shift? Or did they find it would lead to motion sickness?

Anyway, looking forward to more reports from early adopters, such as this one: http://widescreengamingforum.com/for...-t1-hmd-head-m

MAC

[Jamir]

Originally Posted by MACADEMIC

I wonder why Sony did not include an electronic gyro and accelerometer in the unit. It would have allowed 1:1 headtracking. Could imagine though that they've extensively tried and tested this.

Perhaps a reason why they didn't is that the optics only work properly when all is precisely in place and that head movements would lead to too much position shift? Or did they find it would lead to motion sickness?

Anyway, looking forward to more reports from early adopters, such as this one: http://widescreengamingforum.com/for...-t1-hmd-head-m

MAC

I think motion sickness will be problem for some users with or without headtracking. It's issue for sure if headtracking is not up the task and there is no easy and cost effective solution to do 1:1 tracking without lag and drift +other issues. So to me it's good thing not to have tracking built in, price would have been much higher or it would have been useless at this price...

[Madfish]

I believe that the issue with gyros is that they are not locking very well, especially considering rapid head movements / rotation. They are inert but not fixed in space. Sooner or later you'd lose your horizontal focus point. And that'd be a hazzle for "normal" people I guess.

Head tracking currently doesn't just not work well with it. It's damn irritating to me. The difference between a static screen environment and an HMD is that you're much less immerged and your brain doesn't get tricked by it. I just hate the feeling of an HMD with a tracking ratio other than 1:1 because my senses are governed by instinct and fast response from the brain and not by outside restrictions like IR tracking systems. It's just a pain to always search around the screen because your head automatically moved and found the picture out of place.

That said the ardunio solution might prove to be interesting but comes with the issues of usability and most importantly weight! It's so uncomfortable. Also keep in mind that naturalpoint with it's damn criminal attempts to monopolize the tracker market literally dampens these efforts to almost zero as you can't interface with most games. Freetrack anyone?
Also the only solution to cover the issue of even more weight is a helmet system that spreads the weight and takes away these rediculous strap solutions. However I need not tell you guys what a pain it is to wear a full helmet for hours. After all we're armchair pilots down here on the ground. :p

Add to this the issues I mentioned on the last page and you'll find that, once the euphoric feelings are gone you either want a better system or don't want to deal with the downsides anymore. For me it's that I want a better, lighter, focus sensitive and full tracking device before I can really feel comfortable with it. The only thing I could sacrifice is the eye focus part since that'd require support by the games anyways and I doubt we'll see this very soon.

[TomcatViP]

You are absolutely true.

But all they need now is to separate the head tracking unit and the display (what did Natural point but in the other way )

Kinect techno might give some helps here.

What surprise me the most is the poor plastics and low ergonomic. At the age of integrated dev with CAD system that have a full array of tools to do it right from start I am quite amazed...

[klem]

One solution to full headtracking could be something like the magnetic flux detection system that was used on some military simulator visuals back in th 80's. It was used to track the pilots eye vector or 'Area of Interest' for projecting high difinition display only where it was needed against a lower resolution 360' background - a remedy to the processing power needed and the limited technology of the day. The magnetic source was carried on the top of the helmet (read headset strap for us) and a detector fixed to the canopy overhead. It could perhaps be done with LEDs similar to TrackIR but allowing much more rotation of the head.

For that to be useful you would need these goggles or perhaps three or more displays because you would not be facing forward when "looking over your shoulder", something TrackIR currently manages to do on one screen.

[Jamir]

Well i did quick test with TIR5. There absolutely no issue with non 1:1 tracking and this HMD but there is a bit lag even in TIR5 and it really is bad with HMD so i think close to zero lag is needed. TIR5 is ok with slow movement and it feels so good and natural even without 1:1 but fast movement is something you do not want to do with latency high as this(even it's quite low with TIR5). There is also NO issue with screen go of focus when moving head, i did not get it out of focus no matter how fast i moved my head and did sudden stops, it will not move when fitted correctly. I will do some more testing and try to adjust TIR5 to see if it helps(maybe lower smoothness give faster response?)...Image quality is very good but pixelgrid is visible sometimes. It does not fit my head too well

[MACADEMIC]

Any update on how it's going with the HMD Jamir? You've had it for a week now. Better than your previous screen? Can you recommend it?

MAC

[recoilfx]

Originally Posted by klem

One solution to full headtracking could be something like the magnetic flux detection system that was used on some military simulator visuals back in th 80's. It was used to track the pilots eye vector or 'Area of Interest' for projecting high difinition display only where it was needed against a lower resolution 360' background - a remedy to the processing power needed and the limited technology of the day. The magnetic source was carried on the top of the helmet (read headset strap for us) and a detector fixed to the canopy overhead. It could perhaps be done with LEDs similar to TrackIR but allowing much more rotation of the head.

For that to be useful you would need these goggles or perhaps three or more displays because you would not be facing forward when "looking over your shoulder", something TrackIR currently manages to do on one screen.

Klem,
Have you seen this? http://store.razerzone.com/store/raz...ctID.228849000

Razer Hydra uses magnetic positioning (from the base) and claims to be super accurate. Not sure how it can be hooked into one of the head tracker protocols since it defaults to mouse movements.

There is scripting capability, but I am not sure if it can be outputted as a joystick. If it's possible we maybe able to use glovepie and go from hydra->joystick->glovepie->fakektrackir

[klem]

Originally Posted by recoilfx

Klem,
Have you seen this? http://store.razerzone.com/store/raz...ctID.228849000

Razer Hydra uses magnetic positioning (from the base) and claims to be super accurate. Not sure how it can be hooked into one of the head tracker protocols since it defaults to mouse movements.

There is scripting capability, but I am not sure if it can be outputted as a joystick. If it's possible we maybe able to use glovepie and go from hydra->joystick->glovepie->fakektrackir

I'd like to see a Youtube of it in action although it looks like only hand controllers.

I was thinking more of perhaps LEDs on top of the headset pointing up to a camera somehow fixed above the head although for that to work we may have to strap ourselves into a flightseat to keep reasonably centrally located !

[Mage_016]

Any new on this, is there any owners who have played flight games with this? How did it feel? Was it so good that you can recommend it? Or shall we wait upcoming models.

I guess that there will be new models coming even in this year, hopefully with better mounting. Read about really bad difficulties with mounting this on your head.

But imagine

this

and full hd hmd with head tracking...

Thanks for the video Mac!