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[Pie and Beans]

It takes more power because to fill a larger field of view they have to generate a more pixels. It's the same reason why you would need a more powerful graphics card to show a 4K image instead of a 1080p one.

I'm no expert on this but I have looked into it enough to understand the basic problem with the FOV. For AR to work you have to create and project an image. So where do you put those projectors? You could put them directly in front of your eyes but then that would block the view of the world and defeat the point of AR. Btw, VR doesn't have this problem because it is assumed already that the outside world will be hidden.

Anyways, for AR to work it has to project the images from the side and then somehow redirect the light to go in your eyes. There are two main ways to do this. They can use tiny mirrors but that makes the glasses very thick, and I believe heavy and fragile. The other way is to bend the light like a lens but there are physical limits on how much you can do this. Different colors of light bend at different rates. If you try the bend the light too much the colors start to separate. This is why there is a small FOV. You need to be able to bend the light more to increase the FOV.

There are many different techniques used to try to overcome these problems but they all have some kind of drawback. Some entirely new way is needed to get a large FOV with AR glasses and to the best of my knowledge MS is just using existing known techniques and thus are stuck with their limitations.

Yeah, its frustrating when people keep parroting "well I'm sure Hololens' FOV will increase in time", when its currently got a hard limit on it due to...well, physics. What VR achieves is due to lens trickery and AR can't use that due to needing to see the real world unchanged at the same time. MS execs can make all the hand gestures in the world, but current AR tech kind of has this unfortunate dead end.

A full FOV AR is tech that requires either shooting directly onto the retinas or contact lenses. Its even further away than VR was back in the 90's since VR just required tech to shrink and become mass-marketable while full-FOV AR requires tech that doesn't even exist yet other than perhaps in some super-science labs.

 

[Zaph]

Yeah, we've known this for a while but it had to be dragged out of Microsoft once hands-on reports went out and then they finally changed some of those misleading videos to include a more representative FOV. And then Kudo Tsunoda said on the Giant Bomb E3 show that the FOV isn't likely to improve when asked about it.

Hololens in its current form will be an even bigger mainstream flop than Google Glass. There is potential for some practical industry-specific applications, but that's irrelevant to 99.99% of people. Nobody out there is going to be using this thing to play minecraft, if at all.

 

[ChouGoku]

Magic leap about to blow this out the water

 

[darkinstinct]

Magic leap about to blow this out the water

Magic leap is vaporware. Couple of months ago they said they were already mass producing consumer units. Their actual prototype still has a substantial size that is nowhere near what it has to be.

 

[Z3M0G]

I don't have the timestamp but here's the video.

https://vimeo.com/152007588

Which I got from WMPoweruser ( http://microsoft-news.com/why-microsoft-hololens-has-narrow-field-of-view/ )



So it's two things...manufacture processes and battery life.

So $3000 and 20 min? I had no idea this thing was so far from being viable for market...

 

[Dreamwriter]

Magic leap is vaporware. Couple of months ago they said they were already mass producing consumer units. Their actual prototype still has a substantial size that is nowhere near what it has to be.

Vaporware that Google has invested $500 million in, that hired away HTC's head of marketing (who had been in charge of the Vive, the guy who first revealed it) and Vevo's CEO, that hired Graeme Devine as vice president of games, that is working with Weta Digital on games... If Magic Leap really is vaporware, they've sure pulled a fast one on lots of important people.

And where did you read that they were mass producing consumer units or that the prototype still has a substantial size? They did say they were "gearing up to ship millions of things,” but that doesn't mean they've actually started producing any of them yet.

 

[Zedox]

Hololens in its current form will be an even bigger mainstream flop than Google Glass. There is potential for some practical industry-specific applications, but that's irrelevant to 99.99% of people. Nobody out there is going to be using this thing to play minecraft, if at all.

That depends on who they are selling it to...which they (Nadella) already stated that it will be enterprise. We don't know the consumer price. The battery life...imo is actually good enough for something that you are wearing. Do I think that the FOV needs to be increased...that's obvious...but to call it a flop as big as Google Glass...that's a bit of a reach.

So $3000 and 20 min? I had no idea this thing was so far from being viable for market...

$3000 is for the devkit, it's not the market price.
20 minute if it was "full FOV". 5.5 hours is with "normal usage" and 2.5 hours with "intense usage".

Nadella stated it was a 5 year journey. When they release it to the market, they want to have devs on board. They are basically making the ecosystem of it in the open. They want devs to have it and while devs are busy making stuff for it, they'll improve on it. That's what I take from it anyways. I do think that at the end of the day, it will cost $1500-$2000 though. Why? Because it's a full computer.

 

[ChouGoku]

Magic leap is vaporware. Couple of months ago they said they were already mass producing consumer units. Their actual prototype still has a substantial size that is nowhere near what it has to be.

And then google, alibaba, and some other companies invested 1.5billion in it. I trust google, especially since they are investing money rather than trying to improve google glass to compete.

 

[Sylfurd]

Question : How are black colors rendered on the hololens, like on this gif and can it ? shouldn't it be "transparent" color ?
Is it another "bullshit camera view" trick ? The tiny projector can't project black light !


shouldn't this:

Look like this ?

 

[Ehker]

And with AR you can make the room you are in Mars, Mount Everest... AR is most definitely the true future, because true AR *encompasses* VR. Literally anything that can be done in VR can be done in AR.

Seems to me claiming "true AR encompasses VR" throws out the known meaning of the terms. Virtual reality is meant to replace the real world with a simulated one, while augmented reality is adding or changing elements in a real-world environment.

If you stuck to hardware it's more understandable to say ideally we have transparent displays like hololens that can also perfectly replicate VR helments, but that's still an ideal device we're a ways away from that is capable of doing everything from small AR changes of your environment all the way to a full VR experience.

 

[mrklaw]

Yeah, its frustrating when people keep parroting "well I'm sure Hololens' FOV will increase in time", when its currently got a hard limit on it due to...well, physics. What VR achieves is due to lens trickery and AR can't use that due to needing to see the real world unchanged at the same time. MS execs can make all the hand gestures in the world, but current AR tech kind of has this unfortunate dead end.

A full FOV AR is tech that requires either shooting directly onto the retinas or contact lenses. Its even further away than VR was back in the 90's since VR just required tech to shrink and become mass-marketable while full-FOV AR requires tech that doesn't even exist yet other than perhaps in some super-science labs.

People are parroting it because that's what MS appear to be saying. 'Oh it's small because battery life and computing power'. Which is a great way to imply the FoV will increase just as computing power increases, and neatly sidesteps the question of whether it would even be possible to have a 'full' FoV (eg around 90 gpdegrees upwards) with the method they are using.

 

[Bsigg12]

And then google, alibaba, and some other companies invested 1.5billion in it. I trust google, especially since they are investing money rather than trying to improve google glass to compete.

And we still haven't seen a single thing from Magic Leap of a proper product. At least version one of the Hololens which is aimed at enterprise actually exists and works even with its limitations.

People are parroting it because that's what MS appear to be saying. 'Oh it's small because battery life and computing power'. Which is a great way to imply the FoV will increase just as computing power increases, and nearly sidesteps the question of whether it would even be possible to have a 'full' FoV (eg around 90 gpdegrees upwards) with the method they are using.

If you watch the video that the info is pulled from, Bruce Harris explains why the FOV is so small, and says it has everything to do with the glass used and how expensive it is to manufacture it.

 

[Mula]

Seems to me claiming "true AR encompasses VR" throws out the known meaning of the terms. Virtual reality is meant to replace the real world with a simulated one, while augmented reality is adding or changing elements in a real-world environment.

If you stuck to hardware it's more understandable to say ideally we have transparent displays like hololens that can also perfectly replicate VR helments, but that's still an ideal device we're a ways away from that is capable of doing everything from small AR changes of your environment all the way to a full VR experience.

This. At some point we have a device that can do both.

 

[4Tran]

Yeah, we've known this for a while but it had to be dragged out of Microsoft once hands-on reports went out and then they finally changed some of those misleading videos to include a more representative FOV. And then Kudo Tsunoda said on the Giant Bomb E3 show that the FOV isn't likely to improve when asked about it.

Hololens in its current form will be an even bigger mainstream flop than Google Glass. There is potential for some practical industry-specific applications, but that's irrelevant to 99.99% of people. Nobody out there is going to be using this thing to play minecraft, if at all.

Yeah, there's a reason why Microsoft has never publicly stated that Hololens is supposed to be sold to the general public. Right now, it's a technology that's looking for an application, and even when it comes out, it won't be in stores or anything like that. It's more of an industrial tool like an X-ray machine or a flight simulator pod or a $3000 workstation graphics card. Any attempts to tie Hololens to video games are mostly fantasy at this point.

 

[leeh]

Question : How are black colors rendered on the hololens, like on this gif and can it ? shouldn't it be "transparent" color ?
Is it another "bullshit camera view" trick ? The tiny projector can't project black light !

I'm presuming the only way they can do this is by actually blocking light into your eyes at certain points. That sounds like wizardry through.

 

[DOT DASH DOT]

Sounds like quite a 'Holo' experience!

 

[Pie and Beans]

People are parroting it because that's what MS appear to be saying. 'Oh it's small because battery life and computing power'. Which is a great way to imply the FoV will increase just as computing power increases, and nearly sidesteps the question of whether it would even be possible to have a 'full' FoV (eg around 90 gpdegrees upwards) with the method they are using.

Oh I know from whence the echoes come Keep Obfuscatin' is the MS PR anthem.

If you watch the video that the info is pulled from, Bruce Harris explains why the FOV is so small, and says it has everything to do with the glass used and how expensive it is to manufacture it.

Also that the glass visor would become a forehead to chin, ear to ear size. Essentially an entire face mask.

Ah, memories.

 

[Bsigg12]

Oh I know from whence the echoes come Keep Obfuscatin' is the MS PR anthem.



Also that the glass visor would become a forehead to chin, ear to ear size. Essentially an entire face mask.

Ah, memories.

Pretty much. I'm curious to see how they increase the FOV without making the product larger because it's a real nice size right now.

 

[singhr1]

Question : How are black colors rendered on the hololens, like on this gif and can it ? shouldn't it be "transparent" color ?
Is it another "bullshit camera view" trick ? The tiny projector can't project black light !

The holograms are as opaque as you want. By all accounts, they hold position well and have actual density. It's a reason why this tech is so impressive...especially for something that is completely untethered and compact requiring its own computing capacity.

Read Thurrott's recent impressions on them (after souring on it earlier):

First, the holograms are “sticky”—or what Microsoft calls persistent, meaning that they always correctly interact with the real world. If a hologram appears to be sitting on a table, or whatever, it alwaysappears to be sitting on that table, no matter how you move around it. That stickiness roots the holograms in the real world, in your eye and your brain, and makes them effectively real. This is the fundamental computer science genius of HoloLens, I think, and the reason we’re even having this conversation today.

Second, the shipping HoloLens unit has a spatial sound capability that makes sounds appear to come from any direction. It’s like stickiness, but for audio. That is, if a hologram is making some sound, it will always seem to come from the right place in the room, no matter where you are in that room and what direction you’re facing.

Both effects are incredible. And when you combine them—poof!—the holograms come to life. And are … real. Or, seem real. Really real.

Source: https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/63086/hands-on-with-microsoft-hololens-third-times-the-charm

 

[JNT]

I can't say I'm particularly excited about Hololens as a gaming device. As a work device I'm thrilled about the possibilities, even with its limited capability.

 

[Zaph]

Yeah, there's a reason why Microsoft has never publicly stated that Hololens is supposed to be sold to the general public. Right now, it's a technology that's looking for an application, and even when it comes out, it won't be in stores or anything like that. It's more of an industrial tool like an X-ray machine or a flight simulator pod or a $3000 workstation graphics card. Any attempts to tie Hololens to video games are mostly fantasy at this point.

Once again it seems like MS's marketing teams are screwing over their R&D. Microsoft may have never explicitly stated its for the general public, but that sure didn't stop them making a very consumer focused stage debut at one of the most publicly watched trade shows. They showed off film watching, playing with virtual pets, Minecraft, and Halo (behind closed doors).

The whole vibe comes across very misleading while relying upon "oh, we never actually said that". It seems to be a common trait for MS and is something they need to improve on because it stands in the way of having faith in their products.

 

[Hoo-doo]

And yet I recall some heated counter-arguments whenever people called out the supposed 'direct from hololens' footage as misleading.

This wouldn't have been that big a deal if they didn't try desperately to convey the idea of a large AR screen with huge FOV. That E3 stage demo, those user-uploaded youtube videos, all were basically bullshot-practices taken to extremes.

 

[Fliesen]

Question : How are black colors rendered on the hololens, like on this gif and can it ? shouldn't it be "transparent" color ?
Is it another "bullshit camera view" trick ? The tiny projector can't project black light !


shouldn't this:

Look like this ?

supposedly, the "overlay" works really well.
but FoV wise it should look like this:

 

[10k]

Hmmmm, that sounds awful.

 

[Chezzymann]

I don't see much future in this when VR is so much more developped and the entire industry is already behind supporting VR but no one but MS doing shit for AR

AR has a very large range of possibilities outside of gaming, I would say even more potential than VR. You can use AR in public walking around, while you'd be SOL doing that with VR

 

[ChouGoku]

And we still haven't seen a single thing from Magic Leap of a proper product. At least version one of the Hololens which is aimed at enterprise actually exists and works even with its limitations.



.

I would imagine they are just going to show it close to the release date. They did buy an old motorola warehouse, and are gearing up to ship millions, apparently relatively soon. If it was just the company itself I would be skeptical but like I said earlier I really trust that google wouldn't donate hundreds of millions of dollars for some bullshit rather than improve their existing AR

 

[wwm0nkey]

Still impressed that the tech works, hopefully v2 or v3 gets rid of this problem

 

[Zedox]

supposedly, the "overlay" works really well.
but FoV wise it should look like this:

FOV wise, no it shouldn't look like that. If you are looking through the camera (aka the picture), at that distance, you wouldn't see all of the screen, it would be "cut" off. It's not like everything is smaller. You just see that "world" through a small lens.

 

[FuturusX]

Sounds totally immersive.....if you are a lemming.

 

[HotHamBoy]

FOV wise, no it shouldn't look like that. If you are looking through the camera (aka the picture), at that distance, you wouldn't see all of the screen, it would be "cut" off. It's not like everything is smaller. You just see that "world" through a small lens.

You're seeing the entire real world, only the overlay stuff is cut off by the FOV, which means that you would see empty wall anywhere outside of the FOV. So the screen is cut off prematurely in your periphreal vision. If you look closely at the edited image it is exactly as described, the guy wearing the glasses can only see the corner of the screen when looking in that direction.

IMO, this is one area that VR skirts around. Yes, it's currently like wearing scuba goggles, but the illusion isn't broken by the FOV.

 

[rbanke]

IIRC during Giant Bomb's E3 show, Jeff asked about the FOV and Kudo's reaction made it seem like it would be quite a ways off before anything changed. I got the impression that they hadn't yet come up with an idea on how to solve it.

 

[HotHamBoy]

IIRC during Giant Bomb's E3 show, Jeff asked about the FOV and Kudo's reaction made it seem like it would be quite a ways off before anything changed. I got the impression that they hadn't yet come up with an idea on how to solve it.

This seems years from a consumer version, I am baffled by their presentation with minecraft.

 

[nOoblet16]

I don't see much future in this when VR is so much more developped and the entire industry is already behind supporting VR but no one but MS doing shit for AR

AR is going to be the future though, due to it's applications in the real world and ability to interact with the real world.

VR by design would limit you to just things inside the virtual environment and as such would never be a part of your day to day life.

 

[4Tran]

Once again it seems like MS's marketing teams are screwing over their R&D. Microsoft may have never explicitly stated its for the general public, but that sure didn't stop them making a very consumer focused stage debut at one of the most publicly watched trade shows. They showed off film watching, playing with virtual pets, Minecraft, and Halo (behind closed doors).

The whole vibe comes across very misleading while relying upon "oh, we never actually said that". It seems to be a common trait for MS and is something they need to improve on because it stands in the way of having faith in their products.

It sounds like the familiar story of Microsoft's different segments warring with one another. Xbox wanted a piece of messaging to counter Sony's VR announcements while Windows Holographic wanted business partners to help develop applications for Hololens. Both of these groups are saying different things and the actual marketing ends up being misleadingly optimistic.

Honestly, Microsoft should have sat on the technology and only announced when they had something more concrete to demonstrate to the general public.

 

[call_kotaku]

Also, for the people who ask why you can't just slap 2 cameras in front of a pair of VR goggles to do AR: as far as I understand it, the cameras would be sitting a couple of inches in front of where your eyes actually are, so if you try to use a stereoscopic feed from them you'll get disorientated very quickly if you ever move your head. It's why the GearVR and Vive passthrough cameras are single cameras that don't try to pretend they actually see what your eyes would see, and why those systems don't advertise any true AR applications ("find your coffee cup" isn't an AR application, strictly speaking) even though plenty of tech journos seem to think they're capable of it.

The alternative is to just scan in and render real life as a VR environment, which I think Oculus bought a couple of computer vision comapnies to do.

 

[rbanke]

This seems years from a consumer version, I am baffled by their presentation with minecraft.

I wonder if there was someone higher asking the Xbox division "What's our answer to VR?" and they had this cooking so presented it. I felt it was pretty amazing at conveying how AR could work even if it was a bit misleading.

 

[cakefoo]

After trying this it's actually close to the size of my 42" TV relative to where I usually sit. I guess not too bad but it really does break the immersion of what they're trying to do completely, and I'm not sure how well all of their BS demos would work with such a small window.

Hold a transparent sheet (e.g. a plastic ziplock bag) and walk around the room and imagine AR objects inside. It's terrible imo.

 

[ChronotriggerJM]

Oddly enough, I think the thing that sucks the most about the Narrow FOV, is that you can see past the display area. I imagine if it was just covered, you could probably adjust to it. But seeing past the display area makes it seem kinda janky in my opinion.

 

[NotSmartEnough]

This seems years from a consumer version, I am baffled by their presentation with minecraft.

It's very confused messaging.

With the apparent technical constraints involved in getting a wide FOV AR solution working, I wonder if the head-mounted AR solutions will remain narrow FOV head-up-displays for quite some time.

Ultimately the route of least resistance may be that thing where they shine beams of light directly onto the retina (name, anyone?), the crazy bionic contact lenses, or some sci-fi direct optic nerve stimulation. They might be closer than the material with the necessary refractive properties for wide FOV glasses.

 

[panda-zebra]

Oddly enough, I think the thing that sucks the most about the Narrow FOV, is that you can see past the display area. I imagine if it was just covered, you could probably adjust to it. But seeing past the display area makes it seem kinda janky in my opinion.

Do this:

then look around the room.

Sore neck in no time with such a lack of peripheral vision.

 

[ChronotriggerJM]

Do this:

then look around the room.

Sore neck in no time with such a lack of peripheral vision.

Definitely lol, I'm not saying it's ideal by any stretch of the word, it just makes the illusion appear worse than it actually is in my opinion because you can see just how limited it is and you'll notice when things vanish into the cutoff point.

 

[Mr. Giggles]

And yet I recall some heated counter-arguments whenever people called out the supposed 'direct from hololens' footage as misleading.

This wouldn't have been that big a deal if they didn't try desperately to convey the idea of a large AR screen with huge FOV. That E3 stage demo, those user-uploaded youtube videos, all were basically bullshot-practices taken to extremes.

Hahahah that was a good thread

 

[AndrewDean84xX]

How does this compare to me sitting 8 feet away from my 48" TV?

 

[NotSmartEnough]

Do this:

Do her? Well I'm sure she's lovely, but I'm a married man!

 

[Alx]

How does this compare to me sitting 8 feet away from my 48" TV?

You can do the math, it's proportional.
2 feet ; 15"
x4
= 8 feet ; 60"

 

[SteamyPunk]

AR is going to be the future though, due to it's applications in the real world and ability to interact with the real world.

VR by design would limit you to just things inside the virtual environment and as such would never be a part of your day to day life.

Though what exactly do we mean by AR and VR in context with these devices? When we compare VR headsets to Hololens, the difference is a screen in front of your face verses light being directed into your retinas. I just feel like once the headsets are shrunk down to sunglasses size you could do all the hololens stuff much easier by adding a front facing camera to it.

 

[Hugh Swank]

Anyone remember when a 40" plasma TV was $10,000? I do.

I'm sure the cost of Hololens will drop significantly over time, and I'm sure it's performance will increase.

 

[cakefoo]

Question : How are black colors rendered on the hololens, like on this gif and can it ? shouldn't it be "transparent" color ?
Is it another "bullshit camera view" trick ? The tiny projector can't project black light !


shouldn't this:

Look like this ?

Some key quotes from a Michael Abrash blogpost:

while a virtual pixel can be bright enough to be the dominant color the viewer sees, it can’t completely replace the real world; the real-world photons always come through, regardless of the color of the virtual pixel

when the virtual color black is drawn, it doesn’t show up as black to the viewer; it shows up as transparent

you can’t draw a black virtual background for something, unless you’re in a dark room.

there’s no way to put virtual shadows on real surfaces. Moreover, if a virtual blue pixel happens to be in front of a real green “pixel,” the resulting pixel will be cyan, but if it’s in front of a real red “pixel,” the resulting pixel will be purple.

there is in fact existing technology that does per-pixel opaquing, but the approach used is far too bulky to be interesting for consumer glasses

so far nothing of the sort has surfaced in the AR industry or literature, and unless and until it does, hard AR, in the SF sense that we all know and love, can’t happen, except in near-darkness.

 

[TouchMyBox]

#microsoft



i still believe that increasing the FoV is a non-trivial thing because i feel it's not a "technical" thing of "how big can we make those screens inside the visor?" but of "how to deal with the optical issues of distortion and peripheral vision"
I think VR has a easier time dealing with this, because you don't have the optics issue of multiple different layers of focus

It's basically like that bit from the HBO show Silicon Valley where hooli.xyz demos mental communication with animals and hopes that we will see the tech "within our lifetimes".

 

[panda-zebra]

hard AR, in the SF sense that we all know and love, can’t happen, except in near-darkness.

Amusing that to produce the ultimate Augmented Reality, you have to remove as much visible reality as possible.

In AR, you can put objects that appear to be in the real world. OK, so now replace the floor with the surface of Mars. Now replace the walls with the sky of Mars. Program it so when the player moves towards the wall, the image changes to match. BAM, instant VR! If AR can put any solid objects anywhere in your sight, then it can replicate VR perfectly - turn into VR. If everything you see is computer generated, then it is VR, and AR allows that.

Given the quote above, that seems to be way off the mark. Unless you whip that dimmer way, way down to serious mood lighting.