Cheap AR
AR is the new VR that never was.
Virtual Reality promised to create engrossing environments to fool the senses and transport the participant to amazing places and magical experiences. There are a few efforts still moving in that direction, but have drifted away from the head tracking helmets and input gloves used in earlier efforts and more into an externalized (from the perspective of the participant) infrastructure: surrounding the subject with lots of screens and integrating with more natural input modes. High-speed 3D has been a nice addition too, but the cost and inherent limitations of the infrastructure are still a limiting factor.
Enter Augmented Reality, stage left. This has been an interesting evolution, and is still in its early stages of development as the mechanics and utility of features are worked out. It started, interestingly enough, as part of VR directly - incorporation of real details into virtual environments and the reverse. It's migrated away from the high-cost infrastructure and the gargoyle-like wearable computing that promised to make it portable into handsets - now ubiquitous technology with increasingly powerful computing performance. These are capable of motion-matching the surrounding environment and overlaying positional, geographic, or interactive elements onto a camera-captured realtime view, or in some creative instances literally projecting an interface onto something else and measuring interaction that way. One of the common themes of the camera-augmented view is the attempt to create a 3-dimensional feel: the view has essentially been downsampled to 2D, so stereoscopy isn't an option, and instead other standard 3D presentation mechanisms are used such as shading, occlusion, distance cues, etc., positionally represented based on the relative angle between the view and the virtual object. This is an interesting hack of modest utility, and when combined with viewer tracking can create some very convincing effects.
This morning I saw an unlikely (or at least unexpected) implementation of the concept on my way in to work that has started me thinking. A 3D rendered scene (very simple, a few gift-wrapped packages) was shown on a digital billboard (in 2D of course, though given the distance the stereoscopy is essentially uniformly columnated anyway), and had a virtual camera shift on the display which corresponded roughly (and I do mean roughly) with the anticipated perspective shift of a driver moving at average speed on the freeway. There were some aspects that made it less convincing, such as the vertical offset being mismatched (the camera was looking slightly down on the package, as opposed to the driver's lower perspective) and the horizontal shift speed being off, but the gimmick caught my attention enough to get me thinking about the possibilities - especially the integration of time/condition aware presentation for lighting and shading, and what could be done with very little work to make it far more immersive. I'm not even sure that their use of the effect was intentional or if they were just happening to use fancy graphics while I was coincidentally driving by in a way to perceive it as such. No matter what, it was nifty and I'm sure we can expect to see more of it.
Video Glasses
As if the world didn't need further evidence of my nerddom, I have gone and purchased video glasses: Vuzix iWear AV230 [site is down as of time of writing], as sold by woot in a bundle with an iPod adapter for $99 (plus $5 shipping). I've wanted to try out a pair of these things since they were monochrome and $500+ in yuppie product magazines - at this price point and feature set I'm pretty happy. With the new job I'll be doing considerably more traveling by plane (and potentially commuting great distances by bus and/or train) - which, combined with video via an iPod touch, makes these ideal for passing the time in fun and educational ways (yes, educational - I'm a big fan of the TED video podcast, the MIT Open Courseware lectures, etc.).
The specs are a little on the light side as far as the current offering of video glasses are concerned -
There are Zero controls or configuration options for the main unit electrically speaking (though the individual lenses can be adjust by +2 to -5 diopters via focus wheels in the bottom): it turns on when it detects a video signal and turns off when it doesn't. No volume choices, brightness, contrast, etc. The speakers (not headphones) can be bent lightly into position above or near the ear in order to change the effective volume, but there are no options in-line. Given that many media devices output a fixed volume on their audio, this may be less-than-ideal in many situations, although what I've demoed so far seems to run too loud (easily corrected with position) rather than too soft. It's also possible to remove the speaker stalks, enabling head-phone use. This is helpful for those situations where whatever device has its own gain handling and separate headphone jack, which for the iPod is perfect and also very necessary for in-flight use with the high ambient noise and the high-gain audio required to overcome it.
The adjustable (and removable) nose piece has large soft rubber pads which make it not-uncomfortable to wear for extended use, but which will leave marks on a person's bridge. I don't recommend trying to use these for very long without the lanyard either, which helps to secure it to one's face and preserve the viewing angle (which otherwise can be tricky for reasons I'll get into later). It also helps prevent them from slipping - 4oz. doesn't sound like a lot, but when all of the weight is forward and on an inclined slope, physics does tend to take a hand and they will slip.
The image quality is good, although photographing it turned out to be one of the most technically challenging pictures I've ever attempted. The result here is a little blurry, but that's an artifact of the difficulty of maneuvering the camera into place and getting the focal depth set just right - the comparatively long shutter speed didn't help either. These were not designed to be photographed, but they do work excellently with the optics of the human eye (other species mileage may vary). Now here's the tricky part: these are based on high resolution LCDs (
Several competing factors and decisions are illustrated in this image. First, nearly ¾ of the depth of the unit (and who knows how much of the overall weight) is dedicated to the optics in front of the actual LCD (little clear & white box under the yellow tape on the right). If there were ever an argument for high-resolution Fresnel lenses, this would be it (assuming that the etching resolution doesn't inadvertently turn it into a diffraction grating). They also chose to mount the displays symmetrically, with their input regions both oriented directly toward the main circuit board.
This is actually Bad News. While LCDs don't have a top or bottom per se, they do have common properties in terms of the breadth and bias of the viewing angles they support. Since they chose to put the widest range in support of the pupillary variation, that means the supported vertical tilt range is dramatically reduced. These are also identical displays - they were not manufactured in mirror image of one another, so essentially what's been done here is to rotate one of them 180° from the other and use some sleight-of-circuitry to render one display upside-down in order to correct for that rotation. This seems more costly in the development and design to me than simply running the generously long ribbon cable to the far side of one of the displays and using a combined signal wherever possible - I wonder what cost savings they actually realized from of the symmetrical physical assembly they chose instead, if any. The real reason this is a problem is that in the right-eye display, the bias angle to see the best contrast is a degree or two below horizontal, while the left-eye display is a similar offset above the horizon. If one wears the device perfectly level across the face, either A) both displays will be suboptimal and a little washed out in their contrast, or B) one image will appear brighter than the other, creating an uncomfortable viewing experience. From what I've read and personally experienced, B seems the more common option.
It is possible to correct for this in 1 of 2 different ways. First, the wearer has the option to arrange the glasses slightly askew - enough to better align the two disagreeing angles but not enough to throw off the stereoscopic reconciliation and produce a double image, or secondly: to tilt just one of the LCDs within the unit until it agrees with its sibling. The latter option is preferable but problematic, in that the displays are affixed to the frame with a mild adhesive. Glues and electronics are a nasty combination even without throwing optics into the mix - I might be able to perform the kind of delicate surgery required to correct this, but not with the few crude tools I brought with me to the apartment (the rest being left behind in Utah pending the sale of the best house ever and subsequent family move). So for now I'm opting to downgrade from "Nerd" to "Complete Tool" when making use of them by wearing them lopsided - and at these power consumption and battery specs, for 4-5 hours at a time.
Totally worth it.