
Oculus Rift Exclusives on the HTC Vive – Proof of Concept - sergiotapia
https://github.com/LibreVR/Revive
======
mmel
Would pre-Facebook Oculus VR be as obsessed with code signing and attempts at
vendor lock-in?

~~~
kirrent
The SDK has always been relatively closed even before the Facebook
acquisition. They've always touted it as being important for guaranteeing the
quality of an experience which I don't necessarily disagree with but its also
important for their goal of becoming the biggest VR software platform.

~~~
Tmmrn
Before the facebook acquisition you could download the source code for the SDK
and it had cross platform support.

After Facebook: Closed Source, Windows-only.

~~~
coldpie
No, the Oculus server process that does the actual webcam analysis and
communication with the HMD and graphics hardware has always been closed.

~~~
Tmmrn
Yes, but this server application was only introduced with the DK2 and the
0.4.x SDK which was delivered after the facebook acquisition. Whether they
would have hold back the source code without facebook - who the hell knows?

~~~
kirrent
Huh, I didn't know that. I never really had a look at any SDK earlier than
that. I just had a false memory that the DK2 came out before the fb
acquisition. I do remember Oculus intimating that they couldn't open up the
tracking code because it was some proprietary stuff they'd bought but that's
almost certainly not the case now.

------
studentrob
Oculus appears to be behind in hardware (room scale), software (fewer real VR
games), and shipping date.

I don't think they will disappear because VR is obviously part of the future.
But I wonder when they will be able to turn a profit. Vive and Valve have the
upper hand and it seems like exclusivity agreements would only hurt Oculus at
this point.

What innovations could the Rift make that give it some edge over future
versions of the Vive?

~~~
mappu
_> Oculus appears to be behind in hardware (room scale)_

Room scale works well in Rift. Notably, there was a 15×11 room-scale test by
Palmer Luckey himself[1], and comments from several prominent game developers
including Fantastic Contraption[12].

 _> software (fewer real VR games)_

If the launch lineup of 30 games[7] doesn't convince you, and you're not
interested in Minecraft[9] or the full back catalogue of PSP[10] or Wii[8]
games, you can play any existing game in VR either in a large cinema
display[6] or with full immersion[5].

 _> and shipping date._

The Vive is not immune to shipping controversy and severe miscommunication[2].
Issues have included delays, queue drops, miscommunication, and
corrupt/fraudulent shipping costs[11].

 _> I wonder when they will be able to turn a profit_

The headset is being sold at cost. Facebook already turns a profit. Talking of
Oculus as an isolated single business unit will become less possible as time
passes, but it is already projected to reach profitability in 6 years'
time.[3] HTC has recently experienced some financial difficulty.[14]

 _> Vive and Valve have the upper hand_

This is _far_ from as clear as you're making it out to be. There's an
significant amount of fanboyism and internet-defense-force allegations in
various rift and oculus discussion forums, it's important to not get caught up
in rumor and allegations.

 _> What innovations could the Rift make that give it some edge over future
versions of the Vive?_

Already, reviews uniformly state that the Rift headset has superior
comfort[4]; that Oculus has a simpler out-of-the-box experience; that the
integrated headphones significantly decrease complexity and cabling; and that
Oculus Touch offers more precise control than the Vive wands, with full
support for gesture detection[13] via the Half Moon ring. Plus, the inclusion
of ATW directly in the SDK significantly increases comfort.

Of course the Rift isn't perfect either, and VR has a long way to go. It will
always be desirable to have higher resolution, better framerate, lighter
profile and better optics. But we are very lucky to have multiple companies
competing in this space with genuinely viable offerings.

\---

1\. [http://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-rift-touch-room-scale-vr-
palm...](http://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-rift-touch-room-scale-vr-palmer-
luckey-works-fine/)

2\. [http://blog.htcvive.com/us/2016/04/vive-shipment-
updates/](http://blog.htcvive.com/us/2016/04/vive-shipment-updates/)

3\. [http://www.alphr.com/oculus-rift/1001753/oculus-rift-to-
sell...](http://www.alphr.com/oculus-rift/1001753/oculus-rift-to-sell-five-
million-units-in-2016-but-wont-turn-a-profit-say)

4\. [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/04/the-ars-vr-headset-
sho...](http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/04/the-ars-vr-headset-showdown-
oculus-rift-vs-htc-vive/) "If there’s one area where the Rift unquestionably
bests the Vive, it’s in the design of the physical headset. I was comfortable
wearing the Rift for hours at a time without breaks and without any desire to
take it off. With the Vive, on the other hand, I found myself needing to take
frequent breaks and constantly fiddle with the fit to get comfortable."

5\. [http://www.vorpx.com/vorpx-16-1-oculus-rift-cv1-support-
rele...](http://www.vorpx.com/vorpx-16-1-oculus-rift-cv1-support-releases/)

6\.
[http://store.steampowered.com/app/382110](http://store.steampowered.com/app/382110)

7\. [https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/introducing-30-games-
comin...](https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/introducing-30-games-coming-to-
oculus-on-march-28/)

8\. [https://dolphinvr.wordpress.com/](https://dolphinvr.wordpress.com/)

9\. [https://minecraft-vr.com/](https://minecraft-vr.com/)

10\.
[https://forums.oculus.com/community/discussion/26990/ppsspp-...](https://forums.oculus.com/community/discussion/26990/ppsspp-
vr-playstation-portable-emulator)

11\.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4diw2t/money_disappea...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4diw2t/money_disappears_in_thin_air_htc_claiming_express/)

12\.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/4bt7zj/fantastic_co...](https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/4bt7zj/fantastic_contraption_developers_confirm_room/)

13\. [http://www.roadtovr.com/hands-on-oculus-touch-is-an-
elegant-...](http://www.roadtovr.com/hands-on-oculus-touch-is-an-elegant-
extension-of-your-hand-for-touching-virtual-worlds/)

14\. [http://www.extremetech.com/computing/211972-htc-declared-
eff...](http://www.extremetech.com/computing/211972-htc-declared-effectively-
worthless-lgs-profit-margins-fall-to-a-penny-a-phone)

~~~
croon
> Room scale works well in Rift. Notably, there was a 15×11 room-scale test by
> Palmer Luckey himself[1], and comments from several prominent game
> developers including Fantastic Contraption[12].

From your own sources, it's quotes from the Oculus founder, as well as game
devs saying it's "almost as good" as the Vive, meaning Oculus DOES lag behind.

> If the launch lineup of 30 games[7] doesn't convince you, and you're not
> interested in Minecraft[9] or the full back catalogue of PSP[10] or Wii[8]
> games, you can play any existing game in VR either in a large cinema
> display[6] or with full immersion[5].

He's saying he was not convinced by the games line-up, yes. What you're
listing is three third-party mods, two of which of questionable legality
(emulators), when factoring in the access to ROMs. And playing games in cinema
mode is equally possible on both, so the original argument stands.

> This is far from as clear as you're making it out to be. There's an
> significant amount of fanboyism and internet-defense-force allegations in
> various rift and oculus discussion forums, it's important to not get caught
> up in rumor and allegations.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

> Already, reviews uniformly state that the Rift headset has superior
> comfort[4]; that Oculus has a simpler out-of-the-box experience; that the
> integrated headphones significantly decrease complexity and cabling; and
> that Oculus Touch offers more precise control than the Vive wands, with full
> support for gesture detection[13] via the Half Moon ring.

The comfort does favor Rift on average, but it's not uniformly, as the Vive
supposedly is more comfortable with glasses (I don't have glasses).

No citation on the simpler experience and more precise control. Everything
I've read and watched has said that the Vive interface is a lot better. And
"more control" I'm assuming you are referring to the Rift controllers that are
not even released yet.

Your sources are questionable opinion pieces at best. Or reported press
releases. Internet-defense-force indeed.

~~~
elementalest
This just goes to show the rift vs vive argument is very much a subjective
matter. However, objectively, the vives tracking technology is superior in
design (and elegance) to the rifts. Though they may effectively produce the
same result in 90% of cases, the vive has way more potential (tracking
multiple people and objects, as its passive). For this alone IMHO the vive
wins.

But of course, as there are many subjective factors to consider, so its going
to be different for everyone. Having variety and choice is great for consumers
though!

~~~
theschwa
First off, I'm a huge fan of the lighthouse tracking system, and I'm looking
forward to them opening it so I can use it in other projects. I do think it
has some elegance to it.

That being said, it's not necessarily "superior in design". Because it uses a
sweeping laser, it can't know where every tracking point is at the same time.
It can't even measure each axis at the same time. The laser sweeps top to
bottom and then side to side. For each tracking point, it records it's
position in one axis at one point in time and the next axis at another point
in time. If the tracking point has moved in between sweeps (which is likely),
then you have two separate position measurements from two separate times that
have to be combined with data from the IMUS to determine exact location. The
Rift doesn't have this issue. The Rift records the location of all visible
tracking points at the same time using an infrared camera.

It's important to keep in mind that Vive's lighthouse tracking system and
Rift's constellation system only use the lasers and cameras to do drift
correction. Most of the tracking is done by their IMUs (accelerators and
gyroscopes), so the actual results you perceive will be very similar.

~~~
elementalest
As you stated its not used for all tracking, but simply drift checking in pose
estimation. So needing to update each axis simultaneously is not essential.
The pose estimation is just updated with the latest values to correct for
drift. At 60Hz this is sufficient, as the average movement speed of humans is
likely not fast enough to produce noticeable problems.

The rift on the other hand has to do image processing. This requires
significantly more processing power and is only as good as the resolution of
the camera. The further you move from the camera, the less accurate it gets.
The tracking device must also be tethered to the PC (via usb), limiting
potential for adding multiple tracking cameras to improve accuracy. Also the
more cameras you add, the more processing is required.

The vive does not have these issue - as long as the laser is in range, it will
be as accurate as if you were right next to it. Adding more base units
improves the accuracy at no extra processing cost. The design of the vive also
allows pose estimation to be distributed. Ignoring occlusion issues in a small
space, the lighthouse system could be used for tracking hundreds of devices.

What this essentially means, is that you can walk around a room with the vive
and have a great experience [1]. While this might be possible with the rift,
the experience is likely not going to be as good as the vive, and may be quite
poor at times.

[1] [https://youtu.be/VD4UlShicgY](https://youtu.be/VD4UlShicgY)

~~~
theschwa
First off, I want to reiterate that I'm most excited about the lighthouse
tracking system, it fits well with projects where I'd like to apply tracking,
but my main objection is to your comment that it's an objectively superior
design. All designs have pros and cons. Also, I realize I'm nit picking, but
there's a couple inaccuracies in what you've said:

I'm not sure where you're getting the significantly more processing power;
particularly if you're comparing to lighthouse. General image processing can
add latency, but they've constrained the tracking problem, and it currently
doesn't heavily utilize the CPU [1] . You can perform similar tracking cheaply
with an ASIC like castAR does [2]. Lighthouse still has to perform sensor
fusion with different time stamps for the tracker locations as I previously
mentioned, which can also be processor intensive. I haven't done or seen any
CPU usage comparisons between the two, but I believe they'd be comparable.

You are limited by the resolution of the camera, but you can still get
subpixel accuracy when tracking. With lighthouse, you don't exactly get
infinite resolution either, but I do think lighthouse takes the cake here.
Once again though, it's the IMU that ultimately determines the accuracy.

Lighthouse being untethered is one of the more exciting things to me as it
lends itself well to doing tracking in large event spaces.

The limiting factor for lighthouse isn't whether the laser is in range, but
whether the LEDs are in range. In between each laser sweep, the IR LEDs flash,
so that the tracking points know when to start timing [3]. I believe they've
improved the distance of this flash in the consumer Vive, but they will still
limit the distance.

Adding base stations does help improve accuracy, just as it does with
constellation, but it won't improve precision. It only helps prevent issues
with occlusion. However, adding more base stations won't improve the precision
of the tracking device's location.

I believe the current lighthouse systems are still technically limited to two
base stations, because of how they are time multiplexed. They're planning on
frequency multiplexing which should allow this to grow without having to
connect the base stations.

Also, lighthouse is susceptible to IR interference in ways that constellation
isn't. They both utilize IR for their tracking, but since each tracker in the
constellation system flashes a pattern, it's able to eliminate environmental
IR. Lighthouse doesn't have a direct way to prevent IR interference that I'm
aware of other than accounting for potential errors in their pose estimation.

Lighthouse also has moving parts, so there's a chance for mechanical failure.
The motors are manufactured by Nidec [4] who are one of the largest
manufacturers of hard drive motors, so they should be very high quality, but
it is a potential point of failure.

Lastly, your statement "while this might be possible with the rift, the
experience is likely not going to be as good as the Vive, and may be quite
poor at times," seems to be entirely speculation. There are several tests with
both single and multiple cameras that have performed room scale tracking
exceptionally well. [5] [6] [7]

These are both great technologies that have their own strengths and
weaknesses. I don't think there's one objective winner here. That being said,
I'm looking forward to the updates to lighthouse that they've been talking
about to make lighthouse viable for large event spaces, and I could even see a
day where other IOT objects utilize lighthouse for tracking in ways that
wouldn't be possible with constellation.

[1] [http://uploadvr.com/oculus-cv1-positional-camera-
efficient/](http://uploadvr.com/oculus-cv1-positional-camera-efficient/) [2]
[http://www.theamphour.com/transcript-of-
episode-147-absorpti...](http://www.theamphour.com/transcript-of-
episode-147-absorptive-augmented-actuality/) [3]
[http://www.pcper.com/reviews/General-Tech/SteamVR-HTC-
Vive-d...](http://www.pcper.com/reviews/General-Tech/SteamVR-HTC-Vive-depth-
Lighthouse-Tracking-System-Dissected-and-Explored/SteamV) [4]
[http://www.nidec.com/en-
Global/product/news/2016/news0108-01...](http://www.nidec.com/en-
Global/product/news/2016/news0108-01/) [5]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_HlXzELHgo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_HlXzELHgo)
[6] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXrJu-
zOzm4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXrJu-zOzm4) [7]
[http://uploadvr.com/room-scale-possible-testing-the-
standing...](http://uploadvr.com/room-scale-possible-testing-the-standing-
tracking-volume-on-the-oculus-rift/)

~~~
elementalest
The rift has more steps in the tracking process. It has to track the dots of
the currently displayed pattern. Transpose that into 3D space. Then it can
perform triangulation.

The vive needs to only convert the time information to position relative to
the base station. Then using the base station position, it can localise in 3D
via the same/similar triangulation approach as the rift.

Hence, the rift requires significantly more processing power than the vive.
This will likely introduce some latency, though its probably negligible to
human perception. Furthermore, as the rift shows different patterns, it is
possible, if moving fast enough for the patterns to move between frames,
warping the dot patterns of the headset. This is a similar problem to the
vive's sweeping. The major problem I see with the rift, is that adding more
objects to be tracked only increases latency and complexity for tracking from
a 2D image (more flashing patterns).

The lighthouse does not need to handle different timestamps for tracking. At
each instant in time when new sensor data is received, the pose model is
updated with the new sensor info (similar to a kalman filter). The pose model
can be designed to update a single axis at a time though. There is only ~17ms
between each axis update. You would have to be moving very fast to cause
issues with tracking.

So, objectively the vives tracking is a superior design. Its elegant and
simple. The vive and rift may perform similarly within the restrictions of
their respective domains of use, such that 90% of the time people can't tell
the difference. However, I would argue the vives domain is conservative. Start
to move outside of those domains, the lighthouse system has much more
potential and very few limitations that cant be reasonably/practically
mitigated.

------
thravesty
The title is arguably inaccurate, as Oculus have repeatedly stated that these
are Oculus _Store_ exclusives, not Rift _hardware_ exclusives, eg [1].

Since the Rift is the only PC headset currently supported by the Oculus Store,
that's a bit of a technical distinction. But it does imply that they shouldn't
have a big problem with this sort of compatibility layer existing, though
they're unlikely to support it directly for obvious QA reasons. After all, you
still have to buy the games from them!

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/40ea0x/i_am_p...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/40ea0x/i_am_palmer_luckey_founder_of_oculus_and_designer/cytjqi3)

~~~
yincrash
According to github, it seems that the VR stuff is codesigned, so to use the
compat layer, you have to patch out the verification of code signatures,
meaning that it is indeed tied to specific hardware in the code of each
application

------
keyle
This is exciting work. I guess it makes sense for the fact that Oculus have a
parts shortage causing delays, while the vive seems to ship.

It would be a shame if most games would stay exclusive to one or the other.

~~~
aianus
> parts shortage causing delays, while the vive seems to ship

I tried adding a Vive to cart and they gave me a June shipping date, same as
my Oculus preorder.

~~~
yohui
Current estimated ship date for a new Vive order is "around June". Current
estimated ship date for a new Oculus Rift orders is August.

------
shmerl
Does OpenVR require runtime? It's pretty confusing:
[https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr)

    
    
        This repository is an SDK that contains the API 
        and samples. The runtime is under SteamVR in Tools on Steam.
    

It sounds tied to Steam. Or it can work without it?

~~~
MrRadar
It's... slightly complicated. In theory OpenVR is "open" in the same sense as
OpenGL in that it is an open API that anyone can implement (but which doesn't
have a standardized open-source implementation). However right now that aspect
of it is just theoretical since the only runtime implementation of OpenVR is
the SteamVR runtime (which is only distributed through Steam) and Valve are
solely responsible for defining the API (there's no equivalent to the Khronos
Group for OpenVR).

~~~
shmerl
I see. So Vive is de facto tied to Steam at present, but if another
implementation will show up, it would be usable outside of it. Not a pretty
situation, when hardware is tied to a distributor. Oculus situation doesn't
look any better.

Will OSVR support it may be? I found only this: [https://github.com/osvr/osvr-
vive](https://github.com/osvr/osvr-vive)

But it doesn't implement OpenVR, it only connects to existing one.

~~~
yohui
Are you asking whether the Vive is tied to Steam (the game distribution
platform), or tied to OpenVR?

Currently Steam is the only game store that supports the HTC Vive, but as
Valve co-founder Gabe Newell has said:
[https://reddit.com/491hu4](https://reddit.com/491hu4)

And the leaked HTC Viveport demonstrates:
[https://www.vrfocus.com/2016/01/htc-viveport-store-is-
option...](https://www.vrfocus.com/2016/01/htc-viveport-store-is-optional-
designed-for-people-who-cant-use-steam/)

There is nothing stopping other stores from selling games for the HTC Vive.

As for OpenVR (or SteamVR, Valve's implementation of it), I'm not sure it
makes sense to ask whether the Vive is tied to it. Is your graphics card
"tied" to your graphics driver or its OpenGL implementation?

The current situation, as MrRadar said, is that games can support OpenVR and
headsets can adopt OpenVR without seeking anyone's permission. Compare that to
the situation with the other leading VR headset and make of it what you will.

~~~
shmerl
_> There is nothing stopping other stores from selling games for the HTC
Vive._

How can developers do that, if there is no actual open implementation of
OpenVR? Do they need to implement that runtime every time from scratch?
Valve's repo only providers headers for the API, but actual runtime is
distributed with Steam only.

Or you are saying that OpenVR isn't needed for using Vive, and some
alternative SDK / framework exists that everyone can use?

 _> Is your graphics card "tied" to your graphics driver or its OpenGL
implementation?_

If the only OpenGL implementation that exists is tied to some distributor, it
means that hardware is tied to it as well (at least until some other
implementation will show up). Do you expect developers implementing APIs like
OpenGL or Vulkan from scratch every time they make games? Same thing here.
It's wrong to expect developers to implement OpenVR if they don't want to be
tied to some store.

~~~
Tmmrn
The user will have to have steam running and steamvr installed.

The developers only link to the libopenvr_api library found on github and can
distribute their game including this library on whatever store they like.

It's certainly not a good situation that the user still needs steam, but the
games themselves can really be sold and distributed anywhere.

~~~
shmerl
_> It's certainly not a good situation that the user still needs steam, but
the games themselves can really be sold and distributed anywhere._

Well, I don't think requiring user to have Steam equals not being tied to it.
I.e. you can't release the game let's say on GOG, and require users to have
Steam client to play it.

------
jamesrom
Let's hope that Oculus see this and decide to open up, instead of lock down.

We can hope right?

~~~
hanief
I suspect Oculus Rift is gunning the high end much like the Apple strategy, so
quality and exclusivity is going to be important value proposition. From the
company point of view, this is the logical decision, since the Gear VR or
Google Cardboard strategy probably won't give them much revenue.

~~~
Tepix
The code released today is an early alpha, yet people say that the quality of
the experience when playing the Oculus Store game on the Vive is excellent.
That pretty much invalidates that argument.

------
saturdaysaint
I'm happy to see an element of fanboy argument here. To me, it indicates that
there is real competition and that early adopters are passionate and highly
invested - both bode well for the future of the medium.

------
killa_kyle
After a week with the Rift, I'm pretty bored honestly. Most of the wow factor
of looking around has faded and I want my Vive so I can use my hands.

~~~
killa_kyle
I'm actually about to sell it today and just be VR-less until my vive arrives.

------
Tmmrn
Unfortunately it doesn't matter much - The Vive will likely soon get Linux
support, but all the Oculus games will remain exclusive to Windows, because
that's the only operating system Oculus supports - even though most of the
popular game engines used for VR do have a Linux version.

~~~
Tepix
It does matter for the very few people who do not run Linux and use Windows
instead for their gaming </sarcasm>

