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This is an absolutely standard feature of any VR headset that has ever been released in the history of VR headsets. Make a 3D world, walk through it. What am I

This is an absolutely standard feature of any VR headset that has ever been released in the history of VR headsets. Make a 3D world, walk through it. What am I missing?

dogscatstrees 2mo ago
You’re missing the difference between a feature and an application of that feature.
- t-writescode 2mo ago
  The most incredible tech on the planet is just a useless, Rube Goldberg machine without an application for the tech. VR has lots of uses, but it takes someone outside the field who wouldn’t have given it a go otherwise to see another use and go “hey guys, you can do THIS too!”
  - chaostheory 2mo ago
    These apps already exist in VR. There's even a few of them on the Meta Quest line of headsets which are also standalone. The issue is that most people, who are older than Gen Alpha, flat out refuse to use VR for various reasons so they're not going to be aware of any of this. It's just dismissed.
    - t-writescode 2mo ago
      I think you deeply underestimate the value of good advertising and the charisma of the ones doing it - especially when they're sharing their story more than trying to sell you something.
      - chaostheory 2mo ago
        I think you missed the fact that not even Apple could change the mindset of adults regarding VR. I am referencing trends and past data, while you’re talking about an anecdote.
- asadotzler 2mo ago
  10 years ago I was doing walk-throughs of a 10 year old Sketchup model I made of my home -- using Oculus Rift. There's nothing special here.
brikym 2mo ago
One application is a toy. The other is catching mistakes before applying hundreds of thousands of dollars.
parl_match 2mo ago
"Ah yes, how hard could it be?", he confidently asks. > What am I missing? So much. > This is an absolutely standard feature of any VR headset that has ever been released in the history of VR headsets The article is describing "room scale positioning". The first consumer available headset to offer this was released in 2016. It may feel like it's been around forever if you're not familiar with the space except as a consoomer, but exploring a 3d space at room scale has only recently come into the realm of possibility for consumer grade headsets. For much of the 80s and 90s (and 00s), it was head tracking only. Real time positioning and moving around required positioning hardware that was a magnitude more expensive - and pretty much always had very specific space limitations. Sure, it existed to some degree, but it was such inexpensive addition that using an expensive and complicated treadmill was often considered the economical choice. In fact, I don't think there was even a "professional" solution that offered room scale positioning before the vive. Previously, they all had specific limitations like a 4 x 4 foot area or were massive tech demos that existed in a quantity of one in a university basement somewhere, running a very tailored demo, and they certainly weren't feasible in the 90s. > Make a 3D world, walk through it. First of all, how do you map the room? Do you set up lighthouses? Low latency positioning? To do what is in the article, you need a large space and the ability to map into it. Only recently, has "inside out" tracking become feasible. Previous generations didn't have it, and it's almost a guaranteed requirement for any large scale deployment of VR - for example, exploring multiple rooms. Second, how do you create the "3d world"? It may seem simple, but VR headsets require more than double the graphical computation, and that means that any geometry and graphics you inert of the world needs to be within the compute budget of the headset solution. The fact that the person in the article was able to just export a USDC directly out of fusion and have it render without hitting the compute budget limit is amazing and really speaks to the graphical power of the AVP. Lastly, stitching, the 3-D solution and compositing, and the real world is a very difficult problem. Again, it may feel like we've had the technology, but really we haven't had the high speed camera solutions in small packages, and the compute power to process all of that in anything approaching a consumer solution. To do what AVP is doing with the USDZ files, composing them into the real world, and even applying lighting information, previously would have required a fleet of large and expensive machines. And that doesn't even include transparency and applying real-world attributes of lighting and reflection onto the USDZ file, a a task that's hard to parallelize.
leothecool 2mo ago
When I did this for a home remodel, the big difference was that it was AR and not just VR. Being able to experience where the virtual changes line up with the real world makes a huge difference.
- Rohansi 2mo ago
  Definitely a useful application for this but the article isn't doing AR at all, so it is just VR. The most common VR headset according to Steam can also do the same thing (but probably not as well).
xandrius 2mo ago
Yep, we did hackathons with old Oculus Rift DK1 around this concept over 15 years ago or so.
- singingtoday 2mo ago
  That's awesome! How was shipping it? How was the product market fit?
  - xandrius 2mo ago
    We literally held stuff together with duct tape as the project also turned the Oculus into a VR + AR system. Taped 2 webcams to act as eyes as then you could toggle VR and AR. Shipping it was stressful (renderer was in Ogre3D) and product fit well my face thanks to all the tape.

This is an absolutely standard feature of any VR headset that has ever been released in the history of VR headsets. Make a 3D world, walk through it. What am I missing?

dogscatstrees 2mo ago

You’re missing the difference between a feature and an application of that feature.

t-writescode 2mo ago
The most incredible tech on the planet is just a useless, Rube Goldberg machine without an application for the tech. VR has lots of uses, but it takes someone outside the field who wouldn’t have given it a go otherwise to see another use and go “hey guys, you can do THIS too!”
- chaostheory 2mo ago
  These apps already exist in VR. There's even a few of them on the Meta Quest line of headsets which are also standalone. The issue is that most people, who are older than Gen Alpha, flat out refuse to use VR for various reasons so they're not going to be aware of any of this. It's just dismissed.
  - t-writescode 2mo ago
    I think you deeply underestimate the value of good advertising and the charisma of the ones doing it - especially when they're sharing their story more than trying to sell you something.
    - chaostheory 2mo ago
      I think you missed the fact that not even Apple could change the mindset of adults regarding VR. I am referencing trends and past data, while you’re talking about an anecdote.
asadotzler 2mo ago
10 years ago I was doing walk-throughs of a 10 year old Sketchup model I made of my home -- using Oculus Rift. There's nothing special here.

brikym 2mo ago

One application is a toy. The other is catching mistakes before applying hundreds of thousands of dollars.

parl_match 2mo ago

"Ah yes, how hard could it be?", he confidently asks. > What am I missing? So much. > This is an absolutely standard feature of any VR headset that has ever been released in the history of VR headsets The article is describing "room scale positioning". The first consumer available headset to offer this was released in 2016. It may feel like it's been around forever if you're not familiar with the space except as a consoomer, but exploring a 3d space at room scale has only recently come into the realm of possibility for consumer grade headsets. For much of the 80s and 90s (and 00s), it was head tracking only. Real time positioning and moving around required positioning hardware that was a magnitude more expensive - and pretty much always had very specific space limitations. Sure, it existed to some degree, but it was such inexpensive addition that using an expensive and complicated treadmill was often considered the economical choice. In fact, I don't think there was even a "professional" solution that offered room scale positioning before the vive. Previously, they all had specific limitations like a 4 x 4 foot area or were massive tech demos that existed in a quantity of one in a university basement somewhere, running a very tailored demo, and they certainly weren't feasible in the 90s. > Make a 3D world, walk through it. First of all, how do you map the room? Do you set up lighthouses? Low latency positioning? To do what is in the article, you need a large space and the ability to map into it. Only recently, has "inside out" tracking become feasible. Previous generations didn't have it, and it's almost a guaranteed requirement for any large scale deployment of VR - for example, exploring multiple rooms. Second, how do you create the "3d world"? It may seem simple, but VR headsets require more than double the graphical computation, and that means that any geometry and graphics you inert of the world needs to be within the compute budget of the headset solution. The fact that the person in the article was able to just export a USDC directly out of fusion and have it render without hitting the compute budget limit is amazing and really speaks to the graphical power of the AVP. Lastly, stitching, the 3-D solution and compositing, and the real world is a very difficult problem. Again, it may feel like we've had the technology, but really we haven't had the high speed camera solutions in small packages, and the compute power to process all of that in anything approaching a consumer solution. To do what AVP is doing with the USDZ files, composing them into the real world, and even applying lighting information, previously would have required a fleet of large and expensive machines. And that doesn't even include transparency and applying real-world attributes of lighting and reflection onto the USDZ file, a a task that's hard to parallelize.

leothecool 2mo ago

When I did this for a home remodel, the big difference was that it was AR and not just VR. Being able to experience where the virtual changes line up with the real world makes a huge difference.

Rohansi 2mo ago
Definitely a useful application for this but the article isn't doing AR at all, so it is just VR. The most common VR headset according to Steam can also do the same thing (but probably not as well).

xandrius 2mo ago

Yep, we did hackathons with old Oculus Rift DK1 around this concept over 15 years ago or so.

singingtoday 2mo ago
That's awesome! How was shipping it? How was the product market fit?
- xandrius 2mo ago
  We literally held stuff together with duct tape as the project also turned the Oculus into a VR + AR system. Taped 2 webcams to act as eyes as then you could toggle VR and AR. Shipping it was stressful (renderer was in Ogre3D) and product fit well my face thanks to all the tape.