Oculus Rift

The Oculus Rift is a VR glasses with a particularly large field of view and particularly rapid motion sensors, which is developed by Oculus VR. While a development version has already been delivered in early 2013, a publication of the retail version for the end of 2014 is expected. An official release date is by Oculus VR from the past. On March 25, 2014 Facebook Inc. announced the acquisition of Oculus VR for a purchase price of 400 million U.S. dollars in cash and 1.6 billion in Facebook shares known.

History

The original idea for Oculus Rift came from Palmer Luckey, a designer at the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California. Since conventional VR goggles proved to be unfit for computer games due to technical limitations, Luckey designed in 2012 a first prototype, which he first game developer John Carmack presented and on the computer game exhibition Electronic Entertainment Expo in June 2012 together with a compatible version of Doom 3 was presented. To finance the project, a crowdfunding funding campaign was launched on the online platform Kickstarter August 1, 2012, to acquire the target, $ 250,000 for further development. The campaign was backed among others by the longstanding computer game developers John Carmack ( id Software ), Gabe Newell and Michael Abrash ( Valve ), Cliff Bleszinski and Tim Sweeney ( Epic Games ) and Chris Roberts (Cloud Empire Games). The objective was achieved within four hours, the crowdfunding campaign ended with 2,437,429 U.S. dollars. With a total funding of 974 % of the originally planned volume, the Oculus Rift project is currently (May 2013) in the top 39 of the most heavily -funded projects at Kickstarter.com and second in the category "Technology".

In March 2013, initial versions of the Oculus Rift, called Developer Kit, which is designed to enable software developers to optimize their products for the Oculus Rift. Shortly thereafter, the fan modifications for games like Skyrim and Mirror's Edge, while Valve's Team Fortress 2 already offered a software-based support. Middle of June, Oculus VR known to have won in a round investors 16 million U.S. dollars for the project. In August it was announced that John Carmack new Technical Director (CTO ) of the company going.

At CES 2014, a new prototype under the name Crystal Cove was presented with improved hardware. The new prototype is on pre-order as Development Kit 2 ( DK2 ) since the CES and to be delivered from July 2014.

In March 2014, the company Oculus of Facebook was purchased. Markus Persson Then broke off planning a Rift version of its video game Minecraft. Many Kickstarter supporters of the project reacted with displeasure on sale to Facebook, Oculus employees received death threats and harassing phone calls.

Hardware

The large display a field of view of 110 ° (diagonal, 90 ° horizontal ) is possible. Conventional head-mounted displays in this price range typically offer a field of view of 40 ° (diagonal). These devices create the impression of looking at a distant rectangular screen, the edges are clearly visible. The Oculus Rift on the other hand fills practically the entire field, the edges are barely noticeable. Thus, the user creates the feeling of being " in the game" (immersion).

The combination of 3-axis gyro and acceleration sensors, and since the developer version of Crystal Cove an additional camera to ensure rapid response to movements, while a magnetometer of the correct orientation of the image is ( head tracking ). The motion sensors in the development version only measure head rotations (rotation), linear head motion (translation ) are not registered. The sensors of the Oculus Rift work with a sampling frequency of 1000 Hz, considerably faster than sensors that have been used in head-mounted displays or Smartphones ( 120 Hz). This contributes to a reduction in the delay time between the head movement and image display, which increases the level of immersion in addition.

For the poor sight Oculus Rift are of three different sets of lenses that are designed to provide an adjustable display with a sharp image in combination.

Development Kit 1

Main component of the Oculus Rift is a display that with a resolution of 1280 × 800 pixels dissolves at the first development kit, which corresponds to an aspect ratio of 16:10. Because the display is split and the images for both eyes provides separately, this results in an effective resolution of 640 × 800 px each eye half and a aspect ratio of 4:5. Due to the low resolution and the small distance the red, green and blue sub-pixels were in initial tests even visible. Although the resolution is thus lower than for similar glasses, so Oculus VR announced that in the retail version of a higher quality display with at least Full HD resolution should be used, which corresponds to a resolution of 1920 × 1080 pixels (or 960 × 1080 per eye ) correspond. Such HD prototype was first shown at E3 2013.

Development Kit 2

The unit is called Crystal Cove prototype improves especially the display and contains not only a Full HD OLED display, but also an additional head tracking system that detects a camera in the glasses integrated infrared LEDs. Due to the resolution of 1920 × 1080 pixels each eye thus detects 960 × 1080 pixels, which represents a significant improvement compared to the first development kit. At the same time there is through the use of OLED displays, and developed by " Oculus VR" "low- persistence" technology no more Pull- effects, which has been heavily criticized in the previous version.

Software

Computer games and game engines have to be adapted or extended to use the Oculus Rift. The manufacturer offers to the registered owners of the developer version free an open source software development kit. The Game Engines Source Engine, Unity Pro and the Unreal Engine support the development with the Oculus Rift. Some games already allow the use of Oculus Rift, and more are in development.

Reception

After the first development versions of Oculus were shipped Rift, tested various journals gaming capabilities, and came to a predominantly positive result, considering the not yet completed development and the stripped-down development version. Was praised especially the ease of use, low weight and good 3D impression. Consistently criticized the low resolution with visible subpixels, the noticeable latency, and induced in some individuals simulator sickness.

"Virtual reality glasses have long been regarded as the next big thing - really good was previously none. The Oculus Rift, however, that promise at last. Large field of view, 3D, fast response. "

In an opinion article in the New York Times about the future of film in June 2013 indicated author Frank Rose, the gain of immersion for the viewer as one of the greatest challenges to the so-called Holodeck than ideal. In this context, he referred to the Oculus Rift as "The most advanced immersive entertainment on the horizon now" ( German: " The current immersivste form of entertainment on the horizon "). Hilmar Petursson game developer CCP Games called the Oculus Rift in an interview with Spiegel Online also as one of the greatest achievements in the field of virtual reality, which enables already today an experience close to a holodeck. In the press compared to the holodeck was repeatedly taken up as a description.

The hardware won several awards:

• Game Critics Awards at E3 2013: Best Hardware / Peripheral (before PS4 and Xbox One)
• Develop Awards 2013: Best Technical Innovation
• IGN: Best of E3 2013 Greatest innovation ( tech demo of the game EVE VR for Oculus Rift )
• Coolest technology