Eye Tracking – Page 3 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

November 4, 2019

New Unity Plug-In Claims To Boost Visual Clarity Inside Vive Pro Eye

Vive Pro Eye’s eye-tracking technology already employs foveated rendering to provide visually richer VR experiences. But now one company claims it can push those results even further without any additional hardware.

Digital imaging company Almalence just announced the Digital Lens for Vive Pro Eye. It’s a Unity plug-in that accesses the headset’s eye-tracking data. Almalence says it takes this data and “increases the visible resolution and removes chromatic aberrations across the entire field of view”.

Chromatic aberration is a term that refers to distorted images caused by wavelengths of colour not reaching the same focal plane. It can lead to blurry images with colored edges.

Here’s an image the company itself provided of the Digital Lens’ effects. Note that we haven’t seen the Lens at work for ourselves; we can’t verify if the effect is really as strong as this image suggests.

And here’s another found on their website. Again, this is all materials Almalence itself provides.

The plug-in is available now for free to Vive Pro Eye users upon request as part of a testing phase. Potential commercial contracts will be discussed on a case-by-case basis.

Given its dependence on eye-tracking, it won’t make any difference to other VR headsets out there. Almalence also says the plug-in adds less than a millisecond of latency to VR.

Of course, Vive Pro Eye is an enterprise-level headset, so it won’t mean much for VR fans at home. But we’ll definitely be interested to see if developers and companies using the plug-in discover a big improvement or not.

The post New Unity Plug-In Claims To Boost Visual Clarity Inside Vive Pro Eye appeared first on UploadVR.

October 22, 2019

Microsoft Researchers Explore Eye Tracking Uses For VR

Microsoft researchers released some new work related to eye-tracking this week.

The 13-page paper titled Mise-Unseen: Using Eye-Tracking to Hide Virtual Reality Scene Changes in Plain Sight is written by Microsoft intern and University of Potsdam PhD student Sebastian Marwecki, along with Microsoft researchers Andy Wilson, Eyal Ofek, Mar Gonzalez Franco, and Christian Holz.

Accompanied by a video, the paper explains how eye-tracking allows for a scene to change by keeping track of where the eyes are pointed and changing things only in the peripheral vision.

Eye-tracking for VR is not a new idea and some headsets already have the technology built in. Work is underway, however, at all the major companies to more accurately and reliably track eye movements because next generation headsets may be able to use the information in various ways. The paper from Microsoft researchers helps explain some of those potential applications. For example, objects in a scene can be changed to help a user solve a puzzle. Likewise, gaze can be used to predict which of several options a user might be inclined to pick. The video above demonstrates this with two weapon choices and a single physical prop. Using the gaze of the user, the software determines which weapon the user is likely to pick, and then moves that virtual weapon to line up with the physical prop.

Perhaps most interestingly, the report covers the application of foveated rendering to improve rendering efficiency while also exploring the idea of gaze-tracking as a method for reducing sickness induced by simulated locomotion. The paper compares a popular approach used in VR software design for reducing sickness that, during periods of fast simulated movement, reduces the field of view of what you can see into a kind tunnel vision. This approach was compared with another wherein “the participant had a full field of view, but motion outside the fovea was removed by reducing the update rate to 1Hz. We cross-fade between frames and add motion blur to hide the reduced update rate.” According to the researchers, “most participants preferred” this condition with one participant reporting “there is no motion sickness.”

Overall, the findings are very interesting. With research like this it is easy to see eye-tracking technology is likely to be a key part of truly next generation VR headsets.

What are your thoughts on the findings? Let us know in the comments.

The post Microsoft Researchers Explore Eye Tracking Uses For VR appeared first on UploadVR.

September 24, 2019

HTC’s Vive Cosmos And Vive Focus Are Getting An Eye Tracking Addon

HTC’s Vive Cosmos, Vive Focus, Vive Focus Plus, and Vive are getting an eye tracking addon from Chinese startup 7invensun.

Called Droolon F1, the addon is priced at $149. The startup claims it takes just minutes to install, and adds only 60 grams to the headset (a roughly 10% weight increase). It connects via USB and has two sampling rate options, 120Hz and 240Hz.

This isn’t 7invensun’s first Vive eye tracking addon. Back in April 2017, the company announced a $220 eye tracking addon for the original Vive. At the time HTC told us that it would launch in the west in Q3 2017, but we’re not aware of this actually happening. Notably, 7invensun is a member of HTC’s Vive X accelerator initiative.

Droolon F1 uses the same SRanipal SDK from HTC, so content developed for HTC’s Vive Pro Eye enterprise headset should work without any updates needed. This is an improvement over the original addon which used its own separate SDK.

Eye tracking has several uses in VR. It can detect the user’s interpupillary distance to enable the optimal optical calibration. It can be used in social VR to communicate real eye movements, and eye contact. It can also be used by advertisers to collect data on what the user is looking at.

But most importantly, it can enable foveated rendering. The human eye is only high resolution in the very center, as you can notice by looking around your room. VR headsets can take advantage of this by only rendering where you’re directly looking in high resolution. Everything else can be rendered at a significantly lower resolution. However, there doesn’t seem to be any confirmation on whether Droolon F1’s tracking quality is sufficient for foveated rendering at this time.

vive pro eye foveated rendering — Foveated rendering on Vive Pro Eye

Preorders will open in November, and HTC claims it will start worldwide shipping in December. The company hasn’t stated which countries it will ship to, but we’ve reached out to clarify this and will update this article with their response.

The post HTC’s Vive Cosmos And Vive Focus Are Getting An Eye Tracking Addon appeared first on UploadVR.

September 24, 2019

7invensun Announces $150 Eye-tracking Module Supporting All HTC Headsets

Today at HTC’s Vive Developer Meeting in Beijing and its simultaneous Shanghai-based Vive Ecosystem Conference, Chinese eye-tracking startup 7invensun debuted a new eye-tracking module that’s not only affordable at $150 (¥1100 RMB), but is designed to support all of HTC’s VR headsets, past and present.

Called Droolon F1, 7invensun’s new eye-tracking module was primarily announced to target the company’s upcoming Vive Cosmos, the inside-out tracked PC VR headset arriving on October 3rd for $700.

However, as an official product partner with HTC, 7invensun says that Droolon F1 will also be compatible with the original Vive, Vive Pro, Vive Focus, and Vive Focus Plus.

There isn’t any official information out there in English yet, although according to Chinese publication CNW (Chinese), Droolon F1 connects to the VR headset via USB and uses its USB port to provide dual-eye sync data. The standard version, CNW reports, has a sampling rate of 120 Hz, but can be customized to run at 240 Hz.

At the time of this writing, neither 7invensun nor HTC have mentioned what countries it intends on supporting at Droolon F1’s launch, however the $150 USD price was unveiled onstage at the enterprise-focused Shanghai event which points to a probable offering outside of China. Pre-orders are said to begin sometime in November with shipping taking place in December.

Unlike 7invensun’s previous aGlass modules, which used its own proprietary eye-tracking API, Droolon F1 is said to use HTC’s official eye-tracking API, SRanipal SDK. This essentially allows developers to target both Droolon F1 and Vive Pro Eye, HTC’s enterprise-focused headset with integrated eye-tracking.

Haptic Surgery Platform FundamentalVR Increases Authenticity With Eye-Tracking

FundamentalVR is on a mission to make VR surgery simulation as robust, convincing and efficient as possible. Recently, it made a small but significant step towards that goal with eye-tracking.

Usually when we hear about eye-tracking’s importance to VR, it’s to do with foveated rendering. Eye-tracking as a means of input often feels like an afterthought. But with Fundamental’s platform, which launched commercially earlier this year, it becomes a surprisingly helpful tool.

“The reason we’ve always wanted it is minimizing head movement whilst you’re operating in the real world is really important,” FundamentalVR CEO Richard Vincent tells me. “We track your eye-movement and your surgical sight gaze. Being able to track that with the precision of your eyes as opposed to the movement of your head which is what we’ve been doing so far is just a great step forward.”

When you operate inside FundamentalVR, a virtual window guides you. Interacting with it usually requires you to look up from surgery. Now with HTC’s Vive Pro Eye, though, you can quickly glance at your desired option out of the corner of your eye and then look back. It’s still not as seamless as, say, human interaction in real-life scenarios, but it is indeed a step forward.

It also improves Fundamental’s capabilities as an analytics and assessment platform. Vincent says it allows educators to more clearly identify where users are placing their focus and how to improve on that going forward.

The platform as whole, remains an impressively robust experience. I’ve tried FundamentalVR a few times now. I’m always equally astounded and somewhat grossed-out by how convincing it is. With the pen-shaped controller in hand, which is held by a robotic arm to provide resistance, I trial new features like skin that pushes and bends when I press instruments into it. 3D-printed controllers can be swapped out for specific tasks, too, for enhanced realism.

For Fundamental, though, even this feels preliminary. The team wants to build a versatile platform that works with practically any kind of haptic tech, but it’s at the mercy of those breakthroughs, to some extent. The company’s already integrated support for HaptX gloves, but devices like these are few and far between right now.

“There’s five or six really interesting companies working on haptic technology right now,” Vincent says. “And we’re excited to see them get to robust availability on a global basis at low cost but they’re none of those things right now.”

For now, though, FundamentalVR seems to be expanding in the right areas. This remains one of the best examples of the good VR is doing out there in the world.

The post Haptic Surgery Platform FundamentalVR Increases Authenticity With Eye-Tracking appeared first on UploadVR.

July 31, 2019

Tobii Making Foveated Rendering Eye-Tracking Tech Available To New Headsets

Earlier this year Tobii and HTC Vive partnered to bring foveated rendering tech to the new HTC Vive Pro Eye. Now, Tobii is opening its platform up for others to use.

At Siggraph this week the company announced Tobii Spotlight Technology. It’s essentially the same tech already utilized in Vive Pro Eye. Tobii’s eye-tracking technology is able to decipher the specific area of a VR display the user is looking at. The headset then only fully renders the direct center of that area. Areas away from the center of your vision aren’t fully rendered. This is imperceptible to your peripheral vision.

This drastically reduces the strain on hardware processing a VR experience. As such, foveated rendering is largely considered to be one of the key components of bringing VR costs down in the future. A Tobii spokesperson told UploadVR that “Spotlight Technology is intended to support a variety of headsets, including both tethered and standalone headsets.” News on software development kits (SDKs) for Spotlight will also be coming “soon.”

Our benchmarking test measured GPU shading load reduction of 57% at an average shading rate of 16% using @nvidia #VRS and @htcvive#VIVEProEye. #FoveatedRendering #EyeTracking pic.twitter.com/LEXpSagwyt

— Tobii Group (@TobiiTechnology) July 29, 2019

Specific partners weren’t announced today. Vive Pro Eye is an enterprise-level headset, though. Hopefully this news means we’ll start to see eye-tracking in other, consumer-focused devices soon.

Tobii did provide its own benchmarking results for using dynamic foveated rendering in Epic’s ShowdownVR app with the Vive Pro Eye running on Nvidia RTX 2070. You can see those results above, though obviously take note that these are company-generated stats and not something we can verify ourselves.

The post Tobii Making Foveated Rendering Eye-Tracking Tech Available To New Headsets appeared first on UploadVR.

July 8, 2019

Oculus Job Listing Points to Eye-tracking in ‘next gen AR/VR products’

Image courtesy Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook

Oculus seems to be on a bit of a hiring spree as of late; its parent company Facebook is advertising over 400 positions dealing with AR/VR via its job portal at the moment. One posting in particular at Facebook’s Reality Lab—Electrical Engineer – Eye Tracking in AR/VR—lends a healthy dose of credence to the belief that the company is indeed pushing to include eye-tracking in their next generation products.

Facebook has a few eye-tracking-centric job listings currently, including one for a computer vision engineer, a mechatronics engineer, and a few research positions opened to PhD-level candidates. However the prospective electrical engineer working on eye-tracking is specifically tasked with creating what the company calls “winning prototypes,” and releasing sub-systems that are “fully hardened” for high-volume manufacturing.

What’s more, Oculus says the candidate will be responsible for “productizing highly optimized electrical systems that are core to delivering transformative experiences in next generation Oculus AR and VR products.”

We knew Oculus was working on their own eye-tracking solution for a while now. Oculus chief scientist Michael Abrash has been steadfast in his belief—presented at both Oculus Connect 3 and last year’s Connect—that solid eye tracking will be achieved soon, making it an integral part of VR hardware.

Oculus ‘Half Dome’ prototype, Image courtesy Facebook

Not only has the company published a number of eye-tracking patents to underline this, but the company also showed off its varifocal display prototype headset at last year’s F8, dubbed ‘Half Dome’, which appeared to include eye-tracking.

So while all this talk of eye-tracking comes as little surprise, it’s plausible that the company is getting closer to including the technology in a mass manufactured device(s).

Why is Eye-tracking Important?

Eye-tracking is typically mentioned in the same breath as foveated rendering, a technique of rendering high resolutions only in the center of your fovea – the small depression in the retina of the eye where visual acuity is at its highest. Although this is poised to bring on an age of higher and higher graphical fidelity at a reduced computing overhead (areas farther from your fovea are rendered at reduced quality), there’s actually a number of important use-cases for eye-tracking beyond foveated rendering.

Here’s a quick list of things eye-tracking could enable in the near-future:

Automatic user detection and adjustment
Varifocal displays
Foveated displays
Improved social VR
Intent and analytics
Active input
Healthcare and research

If you’re interested to learn more about eye-tracking, check out our article on Why Eye-tracking is a Game Changer for a comprehensive look.

The post Oculus Job Listing Points to Eye-tracking in ‘next gen AR/VR products’ appeared first on Road to VR.

June 6, 2019

Buy the HTC Vive Pro Eye in North America for $1,599

For those after the latest combination of virtual reality (VR) and eye-tracking technology then the headset you should consider is the HTC Vive Pro Eye. Having originally launched last month in Europe, HTC Vive has now brought the system across the pond to North America for the sum of $1.599 USD.

HTC Vive Pro Eye - eyes

The HTC Vive Pro Eye is a business focused VR headset, allowing companies to use the eye-tracking feature to capture detailed data analysis via real-time user feedback, gaining insight into user behaviour and decision processes. This can be used to help trainees by providing intelligent performance feedback, or for brands and stores to improve product placement and advertising via heatmapping.

Eye-tracking can also be used in the gaming sphere, offering gaze-orientated menu navigation or for natural interaction with player characters and non-player characters (NPCs). Additionally, there is also the foveated rendering benefit, focusing GPU power on exactly where the user is looking to increase computing efficiency and image quality. However, with the price as it is home use is going to be unlikely, but you could see them appearing in VR arcades.

Alongside the Tobii eye-tracking, the headset features dual-OLED displays with a combined resolution of 2880 x 1600 pixels, 110-degree field of view (FOV), improved headphone design and compatibility with SteamVR 2.0 tracking to cover demo spaces ranging from seated experiences to full 10m x 10m room-scale for multi-user environments.

HTC Vive Pro Eye - heatmap

“We’ve taken our go-to VR solution for businesses, the Vive Pro, and improved it further with integrated eye tracking. The Vive Pro Eye takes this technology one step further as the demands for enterprise-grade VR continue to grow and evolve,” said Dan O’Brien, GM, HTC Americas in a statement. “From more effective training to more insightful data analytics, it provides professional users with the tools to continue improving the way business use VR in an everyday capacity.”

First revealed at CES 2019, the HTC Vive Pro Eye can be purchased from Vive.com and at select retailers. Unlike the European version which is bundled with Advantage, an enterprise licence and 2-year warranty for commercial use, the North American version doesn’t list it. VRFocus will continue its coverage of HTC Vive, reporting back with the latest updates.

May 15, 2019

Vive Pro Eye Now Available in Europe, Starting at €1,700

HTC opened up orders in Europe today for their latest VR headset, Vive Pro Eye, a version of the company’s enterprise headset with integrated eye-tracking. HTC also opened up pre-orders in China too, with launch slated for May 24th; there’s no word on when to expect it in North America though.

Coming in at a eye-watering €1,708 (~$1,900) for the full system, Vive Pro Eye includes the entire kit and caboodle hardware-wise: Vive Pro Eye headset, link box, two Vive controllers, two SteamVR 2.0 base stations, adapters, cables, etc—everything you need (minus a capable computer) to get you up and running.

It seems the company isn’t selling the headset on its lonesome though, so you’ll need to go all-in if you’re looking to mess with the device’s admittedly pretty compelling eye-tracking solution, which was created by Swedish eye-tracking stalwarts Tobii.

To be clear, the €1,708 is an upfront cost with Europe’s included value-added tax (VAT) that private consumers are obligated to pay. Registered businesses however (very much the target audience) might be able to reclaim the ~23% VAT on their taxes, effectively making the whole system cost €1,389 pre-VAT. HTC prominently advertises the reduced price on their enterprise-facing site.

For €230 more, businesses can spring for an additional support package that includes a two-year limited warranty for commercial use, premium service & expedited repair, and enterprise portal access.

You might be wondering why it’s only available in Europe and China for now. HTC is staying mum on the subject, and hasn’t released info on when to expect it in North America (or at what price), however one explanation could be the recently escalated trade war with China, which has seen reciprocal tariffs of 25% levied on many goods traveling to and from both countries. The company may wait to see how it plays out, as they would likely have to eat the cost of the tariff so it doesn’t dramatically impact the final price in the US. This is however just healthy conjecture, and it could be that a North America roll-out is simply being staggered to help estimate potential demand.

HTC Vive Pro Eye Goes on Sale in Europe Starting From £1499

Having debuted the HTC Vive Pro Eye during CES 2019 at the start of the year, HTC Vive has today announced that the enterprise-focused headset with in-built eye tracking has now gone on sale in Europe, with a starting price of £1499 GBP.

HTC Vive Pro Eye

The new headset features the latest eye tracking technology from Tobii which will unlock a range of functions to assist enterprise applications. These can range from more intuitive social interactions using expressive avatars in meeting and collaboration tools, foveated rendering to reduce PC workloads, and capturing real-time user feedback through heatmapping and gaze tracking to gain insight into user behaviour and decision processes.

Compatible with SteamVR 2.0 base stations, the HTC Vive Pro Eye is flexible enough to demo seated experiences all the way up to full 10m x 10m room-scale for multi-user environments. The headset features dual-OLED displays with a combined resolution of 2880 x 1600 pixels (1440 x 1600 pixels per eye), a 110-degree field of view (FOV), dual integrated microphones and removable headphones.

“The Vive Pro has been the go-to VR solution for businesses around the world. The Vive Pro Eye takes this technology one step further as the demands for enterprise-grade VR grow and evolve,” says Graham Wheeler, GM, HTC Europe in a statement. “From more effective training to more insightful data analytics, it provides professional users with the tools to continue improving the way we work through VR.”

Foveated Rendering

“The Vive Pro Eye has taken everything that was great about the Vive Pro and pushed it to the next level,” adds Chris O’Connor, Technical Director at Zerolight. “Using this headset’s eye tracking technology, we can add significant extra value to our clients’ projects with foveated rendering and detailed user behaviour insights.”

During the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference (GTC) a couple of months ago the company stated that the HTC Vive Pro Eye is the preferred head-mounted display (HMD) for NVIDIA’s Variable Rate Shading (VRS) technology.

You don’t have to be a business customer to purchase the HTC Vive Pro Eye for £1499. If you are then the headset will be bundled with Advantage, an enterprise licence and 2-year warranty for commercial use, putting the price up to £1,697.00. VRFocus will continue its coverage of HTC Vive, reporting back with the latest hardware developments.