An Analyses of VR Locomotion Techniques

Moving around in a virtual reality world can be very different to walking or employing a vehicle in the real world and new approaches and techniques are continually being developed to meet the challenges of different applications. Called Locomotion Vault, the project was developed by researchers at the Universities of Birmingham, Copenhagen, and Microsoft Research. It aims to provide a central, freely-available resource to analyse the numerous locomotion techniques currently available.

The aim is to make it easier for developers to make informed decisions about the appropriate technique for their application and researchers to study which methods are best. By cataloguing available techniques in the Locomotion Vault, the project will also give creators and designers a head-start on identifying gaps where future investigation might be necessary. The database is an interactive resource, so it can be expanded through contributions from researchers and practitioners.

More information:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210512115533.htm

Volkswagen Cupra Vehicle with AR Features

The Volkswagen Group is ramping up the EV competition with its new augmented reality infused Cupra Born. The car's augmented reality heads-up display is being shown off and, if the final product is like the preview, then this will be an impressive demonstration of mobile AR. The Cupra Born uses a combination of cameras as well as radar and ultrasonic sensors to detect and show the driver vital information on its heads-up AR display.

Some of the information currently included in the AR system's array is the ability to detect and alert the driver of speed limits while displaying the speed limit on the car's windshield, thus avoiding even a slight bit of distracted driving that may occur by glancing down at a traditional car's dashboard-mounted speedometer. In addition to its Predictive Adaptive Cruise Control displays, the vehicle can also present directional arrows as well as final destination flags in AR.

More information:

https://next.reality.news/news/volkswagen-offshoot-cupra-born-electric-vehicle-debuts-with-impressive-ar-features-0384685/

Lumus Maximus AR Glasses

The Lumus Maximus prototype has impressive overall image quality, including the field of view (FOV), resolution, color uniformity, and brightness, in a glasses-like form factor. As a prototype, there are issues that Lumus knows about and are planned to be fixed in the final product. The Maximus prototype only has the displays in the glasses with no batteries, processing, cameras, and SLAM. External cables drive the glasses with video and power. The Lumus Maximus uses a Compound Photonics (CP) 2048 x 2048 pixel LCOS micro display. It has high contrast with great color, small (3-micron pixels) for a small device and display engine, high reflectivity for good efficiency.

On top of all these capabilities, it supports a very high field sequence rate to prevent colors from breaking up with head motion. Lumus points out that the 50-degree diagonal FOV with a square aspect ratio is just the starting point for their 2D expanders. They can scale the waveguide both up and down to support other aspect ratios and FOVs. The image is particularly large in the vertical direction for a thin waveguide-based display with a square (1:1) aspect ratio rather than the more common 16:9 HDTV-like or 3:2 of Hololens. The Maximus’s display engine appears to be about 1/4th the volume of the Hololens 2 despite being much higher resolution and about 6 times the brightness.

More information:

https://kguttag.com/2021/05/24/exclusive-lumus-maximus-2k-x-2k-per-eye-3000-nits-50-fov-with-though-the-optics-pictures/

Google’s Project Starline

Google revealed Project Starline, a booth-sized experimental system for immersive video chatting, purportedly using a bevy of sensors, a light-field display, spatial audio, and novel compression to make the whole experience possible over the web. Functionally, it is a large booth with a big screen which displays another person on the other end of the line at life-sized scale and volumetrically.

The idea is to make the tech seamless enough that it just looks like you’re seeing someone else sitting a few feet away from you. Google also says that novel data compression and streaming algorithms are an essential part of the system. The company claims that the raw data is “gigabits per second,” and that the compression cuts that down by a factor of 100.

More information:

https://www.roadtovr.com/googles-project-starline-is-a-light-field-display-for-immersive-video-calls/