Sunday, March 1, 2015

HTC Vive Inside-Out Tracking Discussion


Warning-- wall of text. I think there's a lot to examine here.


Initial Thoughts: it looks like their positional tracking solution does not include external cameras, and instead rely on at least two cameras within the headset.


Potato-quality illustration pointing at some things I mention here: http://ift.tt/1BOuTwX


Now for the interesting stuff: the IR emitters positioned around the unit, and specifically, the geometry of the plastic housing around them. The DK2 uses IR-transparent plastic, which in my mind, has the ability to give a much smoother aesthetic appearance. Why didn't HTC use this seemingly obvious solution? I don't think it's for visual appeal.


So: 1) Why the interesting shaped plastic around the IR emitters? --And how do the LED's on the side get seen by the cameras in the front? 2) Are the IR emitters self-contained laser emitters & receivers? If so, the front cameras won't need to look at the side. --BUT, if they were, the shaped plastic around the emitters would be unnecessary. So I still believe they are just IR LEDs.


So, with just IR LEDs and a weird vertical dual camera setup, how the hell do you get that kind of accuracy from inside-out tracking?


Last thought: I bet HTC made a custom board for this unit specifically to synthesize sensor data before passing it to a PC/Steam Box.







Submitted March 01, 2015 at 09:11AM by mac_question http://ift.tt/18cR8ip

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