Andy Baker

Ground-breaking holographic table – at a price

I just spotted this article: http://newatlas.com/hologram-tables-euclideon/50868/ via a post on Hacker News ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15089593 ).

Holographic tables are a form of volumetric display and they aren’t new. However current models can only support one user at a time. They work by using projection mapping along with head tracking to give a dynamically reprojected 3D view as the user moves around freely.

A clever idea and it must be fairly impressive to experience it – but only having a single person able to look at any one time means that it has little advantage over head tracked VR such as the Vive or Rift.

An Australian company called Euclideon has cracked the problem:

“When you’re wearing these glasses, the table is able to track the position of each of your eyes, and build a custom image for each eye. Using frequency separation crystal films in both the table surface and the glasses, up to eight separate images can be sorted out from what looks to the naked eye like a jumble of coloured light, allowing up to four people to experience a binocular stereo image that looks remarkably like the way holograms are depicted in Star Wars and a thousand other movies.”

So – 4 users is better than 1 but it’s still a not enough for public demos. There is another catch. The current model has a price tag of $47,000

Still – it shows an interesting way forward and it’s an approach that hadn’t really occurred to me before.

Is mid-range hardware VR’s missing link?
Andy Baker

Is mid-range hardware VR’s missing link?

There’s still a gulf in quality between low-end and high-end VR. But for how long?

One of the first issues we had to think about once we decided to work on a product related to VR and the arts was a problem faced by VR developers in all fields right now: Not enough people own a (proper) VR headset.

Let me qualify ‘proper’ for a second. I love the phone VR headsets. I got a Google Cardboard the minute they came out, I’ve got a Samsung Gear and a Google Daydream. I backed NOLO’s positional tracking Kickstarter and I’ve tried out nearly every VR app available on all these platforms.

But the difference between mobile VR in it’s current form and an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive is night and day. It’s not about the resolution or the quality of the optics. Even the refresh rate and head tracking (at least in terms of rotation) is “good enough” with the Gear and Daydream. And there’s some fantastic software – especially related to arts and culture.

But on the cheaper gear you can’t do the one thing that makes high-end VR really magical. You can’t lean closer to a painting. You can’t walk to one side to see how the paint catches the light. You can’t step back to take in the scale.

These things are transformative in terms of getting a sense of immersion and presence. And to get these you have to spend at least £1500 to £2000 on an up-to-date PC and the accompanying headset. That’s a big leap up from a £70 headset with a slot for your phone.

Unsurprisingly, sales of high-end VR are modest. Nobody is publishing official figures (you don’t unless you’ve got something to shout about) but we’re talking somewhere between 500,000 and 700,000 world-wide. That’s not a huge audience – especially if your audience is a subset of that.

Gallery Ghost realised early on that – until that changes – the best way to get people to experience what we do is in public spaces or events where we supply the running gear.  Other companies are also reaching the same conclusion – hence the rise of VR  at arcades, exhibitions and conferences etc.

But it won’t be this way forever. Microsoft claim the headsets that support Windows Holographic will be half the price and work on a much more modest PCs. Therefore there’s a chance that the PC you already own and a £350 headset will get you a decent VR experience. The problem is that  –  a few press demos and previews aside – there’s been no in-depth reviews of the hardware in the form that will hit the shelves. Will it be good enough? Will it be “slightly better than mobile VR” or “nearly as good as high-end VR”?

If it’s the latter then I personally will get very excited (it doesn’t take much…). Even if it’s the former, then at least that’s a step in the right direction.

And mobile VR itself will get better. I’m just really impatient…