SteamVR's "Lighthouse" for Virtual Reality and Beyond 

NotActuallyChristian Yeah, it feels like his interview technique has improved greatly the last years as well. It's so much more interesting to watch an interview when the interviewer knows enough about the tech to ask the right questions.

TheNiters It is really cool to have seen his progression over the 2.5 years or so I have been watching. Proud of you Norm.

Agree++

Bro my bro linked me this video. And I was going to message him saying how amazing of an interviewer this guy is! I'm actually so happy to see someone else really did notice!!! Shows this guy is a goat. Good for you for noticing! You'd probably be a good interviewer too!

probably got limited manufacturers for this kind of stuff. also profit margins haha

@@sherdogholmes576 Crazy, literally just a few weeks ago Tundra Labs(makes SteamVR dev kits) just announced they are making lighter, cheaper trackers. FINALLY in 2021

@@ScornfulSix for real, i’m excited for when tundra labs releases them. definitely a purchase for me as soon as they drop

Unlike other systems, hmd, contollers and trackers are responcible for tracking and calculating position, this require some computing power that costs. Valve dont take any fees to use technology and they dont require you to use electronics there ic partner provide, so the more this technology gets adapted more cheaper solution will show up, but due to way this techology work it will always be bit more expensive, still best tracking most open vr technology you can get for normal mortals prices.

***** aine?

oh you mean the sword art online anime? yeah. i like sword art online also. and also i like anime and manga. and of couse i'm kirito don't mind with my username and my profile picture. i can change that. (or not.)

SteamVR/Lighthouse was a technological dead-end. 🤷 Oculus/Facebook had a MASSIVE advantage in moving to the inevitable end-point of optical SLAM inside-out tracking thanks to their already optical tracking Constellation system.

@@Cooe. L brained take. Lighthouse is still far ahead of inside out tracking and will continue to be used in the professional industry for years to come.

@@Pendleton115 Monthly SteamVR/PCVR user numbers have been dropping for YEARS STRAIGHT now with no end in sight. Only an idiot thinks that is the future outside of niche use-cases (ala racing/flying simulators). The inevitable future is all-in-one standalone w/ inside-out SLAM tracking and only a braindead idiot denies that reality. Tethered-only VR is fucking dead and never coming back. 🤷 Varjo professional headsets support inside-out tracking for a damn reason. Same with Vision Pro.

@@Pendleton115 Also Lighthouse is most definitely NOT still "far ahead" of Meta's Insight inside-out. Meta's self-tracked Touch Pro controllers get INSANELY CLOSE to Lighthouse tracking quality with an even BIGGER tracking volume (bc 100% no occlusion) but with none of external base station tracking's shitty pain points. Lighthouse has its advantages, but they are mostly so niche as to be irrelevant to 99% of use-cases. Even full-body tracking is inevitably going inside-out w/ cameras vs using external trackers.

@@Cooe. cope and seethe bro cope and seethe

Daan van gorp Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.

Yes the applications sound amazing and it will on vr, but they advertise it as a way to move in an environment in real life and virtual, and i just don't want to move to much in real life when all my senses are on other place, i feel this will lead to a lot of accidents

The Mack Attack It's only the future when it can achieve the following 4 tasks: 1. Not require wearing such an extensive piece of equipment on our faces that obstructs 100% vision. Instead of wearing the devices, we need the devices to be external and mobile. A tethered drone (for power etc.. once battery technology improves wireless version could be released) using Ionic Thrusters for silent movement could track a user remotely. As projection technology improves, we would see the user may only need to wear a pair of special clear lens wrap-around glasses which provide a surface for the drone to project your immersive display onto.. or it could project directly onto the surface of your eyes. Directional audio projected to the user exclusively We saw how, although 3D glasses and tv's and devices were all the rage.. they never quite took off to become the new mainstream like we first anticipated they would. The main issues are.. a lack of industry standards, the requirement of wearing a powered headset that communicates using hefty wireless radiation waves right near your brain (the more data you need to transfer the stronger the frequency needs to be and for full VR it's likely a LOT of data.. plus latency handling means it will need to be sending large data at high speeds). I'm sceptical of this technology reaching absolute mainstream within the next 2 years. I'd love it to happen but there are some serious social, medical and physical barriers that need to be overcome for that to happen. 2. 100% deal with the issues of VR Sickness 3. Become commercially affordable to the mainstream $200 price point for the headsets and around $60 for a pair of VR Gloves 4. VR Gloves currently out there don't provide the user with a joystick for navigating virtual environments effectively. Until they are so responsive that you can use a "virtual thumbstick" with no latency the input sector of VR will also be a bottle-neck. Oculus Touch does look good but will it meet that $60 for a pair .. price-point?

@@JaxCavalera hello 6 years in the future :)

@@FleaOnMyWiener haha yep still waiting for that drone

@@JaxCavalera loll we can actually project low power lasers directly into the human eye I believe! I think there's a VR headset out there that does this, I saw a ThrillSeeker video on it

+Siana Gearz Yes, they sync between them, the old devkit had a sync cable, but the Pre has the option of wireless sync.

***** Thanks! Can't wait to get my hands on one.

+Scott Fanetti I see that as an option too. But my question was, can't we just use 2 lighthouses, say in a large area and just extend the sync cable,? Or does the sync cable have a length limit?

You can't do that yet. Still only supports two.

+Wolfox360 50 000 hours/6 years nonstop usage. twitter.com/vk2zay/status/648078454752067584

slayemin I've worked on a similar system with rotating IR lasers that projects lines. The fact that the light is spread out in a line rather than focused on a point means that the energy hitting you diminishes very rapidly as you step away from the laser. Also, it's always spinning which means that it's spreading that light all over the room. The laser is also probably only a few mW... TL;DR other than if you're sticking your eye next to the lens, your eyes will see very little IR light.

LKDesign lol

ahmbouth - Based on the information Alan provided it sounds like one Lighthouse base station is technically possible, but it will come down to how flexible the drivers are. So far it sounds promising, although occlusion will always be a problem with one base station. - A mirror will mess up tracking if it bounces the lasers back to a sensor.

haze4peace thanks for the reply :)

Jonathan Carr kinda what i was wondering...

Jonathan Carr I know Still Untitled is my bread and butter on Tuesdays because none of my web comics update on Tuesdays. Please make it public guys :'(

Jonathan Carr Probably because they were suppose to edit out something and they didn't. I watched it an hour or so ago before they took it down. It wasn't anything too major imo.

Jonathan Carr I hope they get it republished soon. I always enjoy SU:TASP videos and was really bummed when that one was taken down.

they dont, you have to plug and unplug them yourself.

They do connect to the headset over bluetooth but just for updates and turning them on and off when you open and close steamvr.

***** yeah the simple VR setup like Oculus and Sony Morpheus are a lot more consumer friendly , only the hardcore and Techies will even give the VR System by Valve a chance. very cool but seems super complicated for the Avg Consumer.

***** The HTC Vive consumer edition HMD is apparently shipping in November / December with this tracking system integrated. I am guessing that's what he is referencing when he is talking about a lot of these being available at christmas.

***** Alberto Martinez You can use just one Lighthouse base station and treat it the exact same way you would use Rift's camera or PS4's camera. It's actually less complicated because you don't even have to connect it to the PC/PS4. Even with one base station you will get a system with much bigger tracking volume, better precision, latency and accuracy. Rift's tracking is precise but not scalable (tracking more objects will be difficult, adding more cameras even more). Morpheus has problems with occlusion, loosing tracking, low vertical FOV of the camera and low Z-axis accuracy of tracking (depth is only estimated). Lighthouse is the only tracking system that fixes all these problems. Ironically, it's the only system that is actually consumer-ready from the technical quality and performance standpoint.

***** It's the other way around. Lighthouse is more accurate, faster, cheaper, scalable, consumer friendly and compatible than what Oculus is doing by far. In fact it is so much simpler to implement that I'll be surprised if Oculus doesn't announce the switch to Lighthouse tracking before release. There is no practical reason to use a camera solution anymore.

Raydeus Cheaper you say? Really?! HTC exec: Expect “a slightly higher price point” for Valve’s Vive VR. It looks awesome don't get me wrong but it could be fairly expensive. Definitely more expensive than Oculus.

Michael Benson No kidding. The more I see of Vive and Lighthouse the more I'm convinced that it will come out on top of the VR market.

Michael Benson a bit premature considering Oculus products have been in the wild for years and the Vive has only been revealed for less than a few months and experienced by a chosen few in VERY controlled environments. Not to say I'm not impressed by lighthouse (I am very impressed) but I'm not discounting Oculus until after they announce some sort of input device. I don't think they're out of the race yet.

***** it's so expensive though. Might end up more like the difference between Bose and Sony, where one is better but the other is cheap enough and good enough to outsell it.

***** probably right. Still need to see the specs on the shipped product to figure out if there's a noticeable difference, but on paper right now Vive looks better. I hope this doesn't turn into something like what the audiophiles are doing. Those people are ridiculous.

***** Thats the same thing I've been saying, plus I think Oculus will be the most popular VR device for PC since the Vive will be expensive. Many gamers will not be able to afford that.

Damian Reloaded OMG YES

Damian Reloaded There is a vr theme park being designed with that idea in mind. thevoid.com/

You wouldn't have to have that much money really. If u have a big backyard and lots of boxes and tape. Maybe some cheap metal frames. You could do it fairly cheap. Stairs would be an issue tho. Even doors would be easy. I reckon 20k would be enough. Or you could buy a house and just deck that out.

Josh Howson Owning real estate (a big backyard) isn't as cheap as 20k, normally. Kinda took that part for granted in your calculation :P

Deathbrewer I 2 as meaning if u were renting. But I suppose you wouldn't be able to have a structure in ya backyard.

? this makes no sense

David Belmonte It would probably only work if it didn't cover your face, so transcribing facial expressions and such onto your avatar would probably have to wait until we have VR swimming goggles.

Edison Trent there's some interesting research on how to track facial expressions by checking for muscles that surround the area where the headset is to detect eyebrows raising. neat stuff!

Doesn't it just track the controllers? You would have to have sensors on your face.

David Belmonte The Lighthouse base stations are basically dumb devices. They don't do any calculations on their own. Its the sensors on the headset or controller that gathers the information for processing. So you would have to stick sensors to your face for it to pickup facial expressions.

But then that induces inherent occlusion. I play Onward competitively, we cannot shoot rifles due to the front controller being occluded. Lighthouse solves that. The best VR system you can buy, the Valve Index, is the next generation of this tech.

@@evolicious thats a very fair point i overlooked

also important to note that it’d be much harder to have projections coming off a moving object. it’s much easier to keep the IR projections coming off a static point in space then have 3 variable movement IR emitters in a given space (HMD and controllers)

Now it's 9 years ago😅

30LayersOfKevlar Vive cord only 3-5 meters..

Alexi GVS plug the cord into a wireless transmitter.

RedTriangle53 Will not work properly. Because of latency and bandwidth. Wireless is capable to transfer only 1080p/60fps. HTC Vive 90hz and 2400x1080

@@AlexiGVS hello from the future :)

+MulleDK19 Nope.

Well, except for the person playing. Cause they'll be wearing a pair of goggles completely blocking it. On top of that, that warning is for direct, prolonged contact. It's simply a sticker they need to put on there, not necessarily "dangerous" in any way.

There is no danger when the Lighthouse is closed. When the front panel is cracked or completely gone like the video, you get exposure from a Class 3B laser which is so powerful you can't look away fast enough to avoid eye damage. So either they're crazy, or they removed the laser.

do you realise that the lighthouse he show is not plug in any power .......

4:40 Do you not see the lights and the rotating motors? It clearly has power.

well, its definitely eye safe, and oculus definitely didn't license it

Arne Gentjens bit.ly/1HsnGoz

Ryan Davies I'm hoping the lower development threshold will ensure all functionality is fully explored (mainly by indies), it should be a lot cheaper to publish a game for this than Nintendo's closed ecosystem.

lmfao this aged poorly

AlphaSaint98 Interesting narrative sibling

AlphaSaint98 Now i want to know if some colors are more rigid than others?

Thats a highly unfair method, you should do it in elimination of two.

AlphaSaint98 When you plagiarize something at least get it right. You're supposed to send the winning M&M back to the factory with a note that says "Use this one for breeding purposes."

AlphaSaint98 poor experimental technique

Alberto Martinez You don't need to have a big space to use this system. It can track you in a tiny space, just as easily as a large. The real limitation will be the games, and how much they require you to be up swinging your arms about. Which remains to be seen.

Damn, I would’ve never understood what you were talking about until this year