Oculus Rift Upgrades to Four Sensors

gleamingsands

Check it out! Oculus finally did it! We will officially have four sensor capabilities on the Rift, which will undoubtedly make it the single most accurate VR headset this generation as well as, when released, the sole inheritors of the improved peripheral technology available through Oculus Touch. We'll see, but it looks like the VR wars just had a big technical breakthrough.

http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/7/25/12277424/oculus-home-rift-touch-sensors-camera-trackers

Sponge101

I signed up for that first to get Touch thing when I got the Rift so looking forward to this.

xxann5

Adding more sensor's would not increase its accuracy it would simply decrease occlusion, which is still very important.

I still have two concerns about this. The number of compatible USB 3.1 ports required, there up to 5 now? or is it 4 high speed and 1 regular 2.0 port for the HMD? In either case that's allot of USB ports. My second concern would be the cables. That's allot of, i would hope, long USB cables. Not only is it a tripping hazard for room scale but you also have to deal with them, Though there not much of a tripping hazard with the Omni.

But at least now Touch owners will be able to turn around and not lose tracking. I hope Valve comes out with the ability to add more lighthouses to reduce occlusion as well I would buy him in a second.

GreyAcumen

I just hope the "UP to 4 trackers" is correct. I'm going to be annoyed if games start making you be required to have all 4. I personally think that 3 is already getting pretty heavy as far as occlusion is concerned.

I also hope it can support multiple different layouts. It's going to be stupid if you have to have them laid out in a specific pattern. I would think that a pyramid shape would actually be the most accurate: 3 of the cameras installed slightly below head height in a circle (60, 180, and 300 degrees) and then the last one installed overhead for a birds eye view.

travis1409

“…at E3 we shipped a new version of Touch that has better tracking, greater distance from the sensors,” he said. “It’s pretty much the final iteration. We’re doing little tweaks always, but we’re pretty much there.”
http://www.roadtovr.com/latest-version-of-touch-has-better-tracking-longer-range-says-oculus/?platform=hootsuite

edmg

xxann5 said:

The number of compatible USB 3.1 ports required, there up to 5 now? or is it 4 high speed and 1 regular 2.0 port for the HMD? In either case that's allot of USB ports.

Yes, the headset only needs USB 2.0.

But an officially supported five-port USB 3 card costs about $30. Three extra cameras will cost about $300. So it's a minor issue unless your PC is out of PCI-Express sockets.

xxann5 said:

I hope Valve comes out with the ability to add more lighthouses to reduce occlusion as well I would buy him in a second.

Two lighthouses is a fundamental limit of the current design, since the headset can't tell which lighthouse is illuminating it at any time. You'd have to start flashing them with a coded ID or something to support more than two, or reduce the scan rate even further (AFAIR, the two lighthouses currently alternate, so only one is illuminating the room at any time).

edmg

GreyAcumen said:

I'm going to be annoyed if games start making you be required to have all 4..

Since most of the possible market will only have two, few, if any, games would ever require four.