Everyone is saying the FoV is low, I'm not denying that. However I'd imagine the FoV is something which wouldn't be particularly difficult to improve upon. Everyone is saying that the core of the system, the holograms themselves, are actually fantastic.
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Verge: New Hololens impressions "demo videos are all basically a lie"
- Thread starter nynt9
- Start date
Everyone is saying the FoV is low, I'm not denying that. However I'd imagine the FoV is something which wouldn't be particularly difficult to improve upon. Everyone is saying that the core of the system, the holograms themselves, are actually fantastic.
Natureboy99
Banned
This. I was skeptical at first, but its worse than I thought.
magnumpy
Member
AR has all of the problems associated with VR, plus some more on top of it (tracking not just you, but your whole environment as well is an obvious one.) so you would expect this to be solved AFTER VR. if we expect VR devices like the oculus rift or sony morpheus in 2016, the AR devices should come sometime in 2017 or much later.
Another bullshit tech video from Microsoft, how surprising...
pinkurocket
Member
I'm not particularly rooting for Microsoft, but the articles do mention that the technology works, but it's just that the demo videos are dramatized immensly. It's impossible to portray exactly what it does in a video and unlike VR it's difficult to explain it easily, therefore they have to put out these exaggerated presentations to get the concept across. The actual technology seems to work well enough, with it detecting your surroundings and adding an augmented reality on top of it that can interact with what's there. If the FOV is the issue, that can be improved as the technology evolves. I mean, technically Kinect also works... It's just implemented in a way that's not here nor there. I don't really see Hololens taking off either.
The solution is obvious. Put artificial blinders on the glasses that effectively give you tunnel vision to the same degree that holograms can be rendered. Then when people get defensive about Hololens, we can accuse them of putting blinders on... because... well... you get it.
i don't even think its that complicated. It was a downgrade from the first time the press got their hands on it, which is where a lot of these comments are coming from.
Again, its a product that is getting closer to launch, so things are getting scaled back to something a bit more feasible
soul creator
Member
The gif that always gets posted was from a Cirque De Soleil performance where everyone wore ponchos and stuff was obviously faked (I don't think anyone ever tried to pass it off as normal gameplay...I hope) not at E3 or any other gameplay event. This was more equivalent of a "target render for controls" rather than some serious gameplay demo.
The E3 reveal in 2011 was the first time actual gameplay of Kinect Star Wars was shown, and was playable on the show floor as well. Like a lot of Kinect games, it had some good ideas, and worked ok in ideal conditions, but also had a lot of jank associated with it.
walkthrough of the jedi mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NbOBppAI1E
disclaimer: I'm biased as I worked on the game
I don't think it's a good way to introduce new tech because most of it skirts around actually discussing new tech and concentrates on the "magic" or concepts of the idea, completely glossing over the technological advancements required to achieve the staged presentation. It's like saying David Blaine is a good way to demonstrate levitation as a technological advancement. People want to know how you achieve high accuracy markerless AR. People want to know how you can get 1:1 positional tracking in a room that will not drift, people want to know how to achieve a high FOV for AR without lenses, people want to know how to handle realworld obstruction of AR elements. People don't want to be shown misleading demonstrations of "well if this was possible then this is what it will look like". The demos are staged in the best case scenario even (angular realworld furniture with contrast for improved markerless tracking) they are still buggy compared to the onstage demo. People just don't want to read that the movement is not as good as shown on stage. People want to know how a product performs in the real world, not theoretically based on best case scenarios or completely faked for that matter. That was the reason kinect didn't work as advertised. The devil is in the detail not the idea. Why do you think your phone screen isn't able to perform this task (AR) right now as good as the staged demo? If we actually had an introduction to the tech we would know, instead we have smoke and mirrors and a promise. I mean it's not like they haven't bullshited people before with kinect and the cloud.
killer rin
Member
So they are talking about it on Windows Weekly on TWIT right now. Apparently The FOV used to be much, much larger back in January. This adds some credence to the rumour of it being reduced due to disorientation.
So I'm assuming they will be trying different FOVs between now and launch, and they'll choose the best one come launch, whenever that is
So I'm assuming they will be trying different FOVs between now and launch, and they'll choose the best one come launch, whenever that is
People who were watching the "demo" at the Cirque de Soleil one sure applauded and cheered like they thought it was real though.
neogaffer1
Banned
The obvious problem here is that they tried to make HoloLens a dedicated, independent unit. Because of this they were limited in raw performance, and, as such, we got to the FoV problems as a way to cover up the fact that the hardware cannot handle a resolution that would allow a higher FoV and still not look pixelated.
The ideal solution is to tether it, whether wireless or wired, to a desktop or an otherwise immobile piece of hardware that would be big enough to pack enough power to render at high resolutions, but too big to fit in the headset itself. However, Microsoft themselves have made it a specific point to avoid something like that, focusing on making the device mobile.
In other words, we have gotten to a point where everything about augmented reality can be done. We can measure the room around us, we can render 3D objects, and we can insert these objects into the room in a realistic manner.
But, for all practical reasons, we're held back by one thing and one thing only: the fact remains that mobile hardware is not powerful enough to do this on its own, at least not without disappointing limitations.
The ideal solution is to tether it, whether wireless or wired, to a desktop or an otherwise immobile piece of hardware that would be big enough to pack enough power to render at high resolutions, but too big to fit in the headset itself. However, Microsoft themselves have made it a specific point to avoid something like that, focusing on making the device mobile.
In other words, we have gotten to a point where everything about augmented reality can be done. We can measure the room around us, we can render 3D objects, and we can insert these objects into the room in a realistic manner.
But, for all practical reasons, we're held back by one thing and one thing only: the fact remains that mobile hardware is not powerful enough to do this on its own, at least not without disappointing limitations.
Dreamwriter
Member
Did you actually try it out?
Personally, I think this is making a big thing out of nothing, considering the Hololens isn't coming out for probably over a year. Plenty of time to improve the FOV. And it's not a lie if that is their goal FOV and they think they can do it.
MrGreencastle
Member
Disorientation yeah. Maybe scaling down the processing power to lower the cost? I don't know if that would matter. No clue how this works.
maquiladora
Member
Paul Thurrott just echoed this on Windows Weekly on TWiT. He said it was a huge downgrade from when he first tried it in terms of field of view, it made the presentations they've done with it very misleading.
This has nothing to do computing power for resolution when we have mobiles pushing higher res displays than other bulky hardware. It has to do with the screen tech being flat. The fact that they can't use lenses for this type of AR without distorting your realworld vision means they have a low FOV. With flat display technology the display would need to protrude from the side of your head and the distance it protrudes becomes more and more for less and less gain in FOV.
Dreamwriter
Member
What are you talking about? There is no flat screen involved in Hololens.
Dreamwriter
Member
What area? So far every article I've read says Hololens uses a projector that shines directly into your eyes, not onto a surface in front of them. Which is part of how the image meshes so well with your surroundings.
The thing is that when wearing it, you can see those images, and do the things you see. People have confirmed it that at both times it been shown. The only issue now is the limited view size. Its not like they're making up the technology. I think the video demos showing whole rooms are confusing people. You would see a full wall of video, if you stood further back. They do need to improve the fov but i think it's going to be a huge challenge. Our eyesight changes on the peripheral, how they will make the holograms work without warping and matching the environments around you is going to be a problem then larger the go gets.
RowdyReverb
Member
I guess the tech just isn't there yet, which is too bad. I still hope for the day that my friends/family and I can strap goggles like this on and play a holographic board game. Maybe HoloLens 2.0?
The area marked in red. The projector does not have line of sight on your pupils. A lens or piece of glass does it. That small flat piece of glass is how you see things. It's projected on that piece of glass. A virtual image is formed. I believe the method is very similar to a pilots HUD or any other VRD. Though again, thats the problem with controlled demos where the creator does not actually talk about technology but concepts, you can never be sure.
Horsemama1956
Member
Wasn't it obvious the FOV couldn't be what the video was showing? You can still do the same shit, just can't see it all. Why would you need to be looking at so much at the same time anyway?
How the fuck would your brain process that?
How the fuck would your brain process that?
but from what the journalists tested it seems their are two versions of the hololens, 1 that was tested recently that is wireless and the one that journalist tried for the first time but said it was super secret and was attached to a giant computer , so maybe different versions ?
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
Small FOV would make this pretty useless.
ginger ninja
Banned
on one hand, microsoft has always trolled with make believe demos. On the other hand, verge has become a shit tier website in the last two years..who to believe
Pathfinder
Member
There's still hope for HoloLens. The product is at least half a year out.
You should read the Ars Technica article which also explains the same thing I have mentioned here - you will be limited to small objects (since you can't see what else you are doing otherwise) and only looking directly forward in order to see anything (since the FOV is small both horizontally and vertically). It is not natural for people to force a fixed perspective of looking directly forward, so you will break the illusion of what hololens is creating pretty regularly whenever your eyes veer away. The Verge's article and video explain the same issues
magnumpy
Member
normal human vision covers about a 180 degree FOV. obviously our brains are able to handle that. there is only a (very) small area which is the high resolution portion (what you're looking at) so there is some wiggle room there. but "foviated rendering" is not a solved problem.
AFAIK Hololens does not use retinal projection. It uses a special kind of optic fiber to project the light through the glass surface until it leaves through the display surface, lighting up a pixel. The light is bounced several times before getting there, which allows the virtual screen to have a much larger focal distance than the display surface without using lenses.
I'm also pretty sure Hololens uses a laser video projector to produce the images, not a LCD screen. I'm not sure what kind of resolutions miniature LVPs have nowadays, but they work very differently from LCD displays.
Oh man, the guy's face cracks me up.
CharminUltra
Member
Sounded kinda cool. Oh well.
Lol
AyaisMUsikWhore
Member
Welp, can't say I'm surprised tbh. It's just not all that impressive. I hope they rethink the whole "glasses" thing and move this out into a single touch peripheral that can make this a true evolution. This is just not cutting it for me.
Head.spawn
Junior Member
I thought people mentioned the limited field of view when they first announced the project? I'm not getting anything from video that want immediately obvious.
Edit: probably should have read more of the thread first, I see it's decreased further.
Edit: probably should have read more of the thread first, I see it's decreased further.
plasmawave
Banned
You know, if you are gonna show a concept video, make sure you mention that it's a concept video.