Magic Leap

The magic leap has been a controversial topic in the AR & VR community. After its release, we were eager to try and see if the hype amounted to what was being delivered. Being on the front of research around AR & VR as an educational institution, it was a disappointment finding out that it was not possible to order outside of the USA. In The Pocket, a company based in Gent, managed to get their hands on one of the devices, and they were kind enough to invite us, so we could test the device. After the mixed reviews online, our expectations weren’t very high to begin with.
Setting up the tracking took some time, but once this was done, we could give it a go. The first thing that comes to mind is that the product is rather similar to the Hololens. Quickly however one starts noticing the differences.
The experience seems more gamified. The menu, the applications, everything seems to be less oriented for professional use in the industry and feels more like a portable console experience, more comparable to the VR headset than the Hololens. This is also due to the level of immersion. Your view gets blocked by the frame of the glasses and the slightly bigger field of view does give this illusion of delivering more than it actually does, but it works. The controller felt reliable, however it’s a missed opportunity to take more advantage of hand tracking technology. One is forced to use the controller to interact with menus.
From a technical point of view, the mesh generation does seem to be more accurate than the Hololens, tracking feels solid, despite it taking quite some time to setup. One of the things we noticed is that, when leaving the application and starting it up again, we had to do the setup again, and it just kept going. While it took some time to find the points to satisfy the device, we could not exit this setup. None of the buttons seemed to react or allow us to exit the setup, which does not feel all that user friendly.
The device seems worth investing in for developers, to start experimenting and being creative, however it is perhaps not entirely ready yet to be rolled out to consumers.

by Istvan Vermeulen

VR Headset Vergelijking

De wereld van VR wordt steeds groter en groter, en meer bedrijven nemen de stap naar een eigen bril te maken. Met meer keuze, hoe weet je welke het best voor je past?

Het volgende artikel geeft ons een mooie vergelijking om de keuze te vereenvoudigen op vlak van Windows Mixed Reality oplossingen.

by Istvan Vermeulen

Dent Reality - Retail AR

Retail AR is een app die eenvoudig en doelgericht winkelen mogelijk maakt door klanten naar hun gewenste items te leiden.

Het bedrijf, Dent Reality, werd opgericht door Andrew Hart, door wiens baanbrekend werk Augmented Reality Localisatie mogelijk maakte met ARKit.

Door gps- en wifi-gegevens te combineren om de globale locatie te bepalen in combinatie met de hoge nauwkeurigheid van AR, stijgen locatie gebaseerde apps naar een geheel nieuw niveau.

Iedereen kan bijdragen en toegang krijgen tot de bron op Github.

 

by Istvan Vermeulen

uSens Fingo

 

 

Hand-tracking kan ervoor zorgen dat VR- en AR-ervaringen controllervrij zijn, Dit maakt de applicatie intuïtiever en gemakkelijker om te gebruiken door mensen die nog geen ervaring hebben met de vele VR controllers op de markt.

Met uSens zijn nieuwe product heeft LeapMotion concurrentie.

Binnen onze onderzoeksgroep werd reeds geëxperimenteerd met LeapMotion en kan er bevestigd worden dat er soms nauwkeurigheidsproblemen zijn, vooral met de ringvinger. Ook overlapping kan leiden tot verlies van hand detectie. Fingo lijkt deze problemen niet te hebben, maar zelf hebben we dit nog niet kunnen testen.

De prijs zit in dezelfde categorie als de leap, maar Fingo is iets duurder.

by Istvan Vermeulen