pimax – Page 19 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

September 11, 2017September 19, 2017

Pimax Launches Kickstarter Today For 8K & 5K VR Headsets

Pimax, the China-based VR headset manufacturer, just launched their Kickstarter for the hotly anticipated 8K and 5K VR headsets.

Update (09/19/17): The rumors were true; Pimax has launched their Kickstarter today. The company is aiming to reach $200,000 in funding, with prices starting at $349 for the 5K, and $449 for the 8K headset. Unlike the Kickstarter preview page that was published earlier this month, the live page quotes a January 2018 delivery for Early Bird headsets instead of the previous December 2017 shipping date.

Original article (09/11/17): To be frank, the Pimax headsets aren’t actually 8K or 5K resolution, instead integrating dual 3840×2160 LCD panels and dual 2560×1440 OLED panels respectively. Both are still higher resolution than consumer VR headsets today though, and have a much higher field of view (FOV) at 200 degrees horizontal, almost the entire 220 degree natural range of human eyes.

There’s no tier pricing on the Kickstarter preview page yet, but the first 8K/5K headsets are said to roll out to backers starting December 2017, with normal tiers delivering in February 2018.

Pimax 8K prototype showing wide FOV fresnel lenses

We had a chance to play with a prototype of Pimax 8K at this year’s CES before the company integrated Valve’s Lighthouse tracking solution—one of the first to do so outside of HTC. Road to VR’s Frank He, who tried the headset, said its 200 degree FOV was “impressive,” and that resolution-wise, he couldn’t discern sub-pixels “no matter how hard [he] looked.” To He, the screen door effect (SDE) was also diminished to the amount of “looking at a slightly textured surface or film.” The prototype did however suffer from a dim display and some geometric warping that made the experience less than perfect.

Since CES, the makers have added support for SteamVR, giving it access to a full catalog of games originally developed for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.

You may be asking yourself how a VR-ready gaming computer could possibly drive these sorts of graphically demanding resolutions. Pimax’s answer is a software technique they call ‘Brainwarp’, which renders a 4K image only on a single display at time, doing it 150/180 times per second. Pimax says users “perceive a complete 8K at 150/180 Hz with high frame rate,” and that it “boosts refresh rate, reduces latency and decreases GPU pressure for Pimax 8K.”

What’s noticeably missing from Kickstarter page is any substantial info about the ‘next generation’ modular add-ons we reported on recently, with the page simply saying that the headset is just a starting point for DIY enthusiasts.

“With modular design in mind, we made Pimax 8K an extendable device that not only works with your current accessories, but also new technologies. e.g. hand motion, inside-out tracking, wireless, eye tracking, etc,” the company says. At the time of this writing, no funding tiers appear to include any of the teased add-ons.

We’ll check back in when the campaign goes live, so stay tuned.

Pimax 8K VR Specs

The post Pimax Launches Kickstarter Today For 8K & 5K VR Headsets appeared first on Road to VR.

September 8, 2017

Pimax Teases ‘Next Generation’ Accessories for Its 8K VR Headset

Pimax, the Chinese VR headset manufacturer, released a teaser video showing a number of high-tech accessories that clip onto the company’s upcoming 8K VR headset—a headset that boasts a staggering 200 degree field of view (FOV) at 3840×2160 per eye resolution via its dual LCD displays.

In the video, we see some pretty ‘next generation’ clip-on (and screw-on) modules; eye-tracking, inside-out hand-tracking, scent enabling module, wireless transmitter, prescription glasses frame, cooling fan, and both a halo-style headband with integrated audio and traditional headstrap—everything you might consider ‘the future’ of VR.

The video doesn’t go exactly how some of the less obvious, and decidedly more exotic accessories work, the most curious being the scent module, which if like others on the market, acts essentially as an oil diffuser with built-in fan. If it works like the similarly-sized scent unit from Japanese startup Vaqso, it contains a small number of ‘scent cartridges’ that activate during specific points during the VR experience, including an integrated battery and Bluetooth radio. This is uncertain however.

What’s also striking is how thin the wireless transmitter appears. It remains to be seen whether the company’s transmitter features an integrated battery like industry stalwart DisplayLink, or requires an external powerbank like TPCast.

Pimax is staying mum on any of the specifics, and only currently offers an info signup sheet. We can only speculate at this point how good both the eye and hand-tracking are (so we won’t).

Road to VR’s Frank He went hands-on with a prototype of the 8K headset at this year’s CES, saying the headset’s 200 degree FOV was “impressive,” and that resolution-wise, he couldn’t discern sub-pixels “no matter how hard [he] looked.”

In the following months since CES, Pimax has also integrated Valve’s Lighthouse positional tracking to go along with its own optically-tracked system, making it one of the first headsets outside of HTC to do so. A pair of Lighthouse-enabled controllers come in the package, which look like a mashup of the Vive’s own motion controllers and Oculus’ Touch contollers.

There’s no launch date in sight for the company’s 8K VR headset Kickstarter, but we’re hoping the headset delivers on everything its promised so far in the video.

8K VR Headset Specs

The post Pimax Teases ‘Next Generation’ Accessories for Its 8K VR Headset appeared first on Road to VR.

January 14, 2017

Hands On: PiMAX’s 8K Headset Proves that High FOV VR is Coming

Frank He goes hands on with PiMAX’s ludicrously high-spec 8k, 200 degree FOV prototype at CES and find the company has some innovative solutions to some of the substantial challenges driving a headset like this poses.

While there were many perhaps questionable Chinese VR headsets shown off at CES this year, Pimax’s new 8K, 200 degree prototype actually stood out from the crowd. Moreover, Pimax perhaps even showed both some of the potential that high spec headsets might provide along with the challenges associated with getting the details right. Not only was I able to give the new headset a try, I was also able to learn more about how exactly they intend to address the significant challenges behind powering a headset that boasts a 3840 x 2160 per eye resolution.

The exterior of Pimax’s new prototype bears some resemblance to Starbreeze’s 210 degree StarVR headset (and the InfinitEye before it) but uses a PlayStation VR (PSVR) style mounting mechanism. Each of the headset’s displays (one per eye), are placed at a canted angle, just like StarVR’s. In terms of heft, the Pimax unit didn’t seem that much heavier than the PSVR upon use, although as ever, it’s hard to judge this accurately given that it was just a short demo. One thing’s for sure though, the bulky shell makes it look heavier than it actually feels.

The headset’s resolution was probably the best thing about the headset. Whilst inside, I couldn’t discern individual sub-pixels no matter how hard I looked – whereas with the Rift or Vive I can. It took some effort to even discern individual pixels. The result was that it felt like I was looking at a slightly textured surface or film, similar to the current headsets, but much sharper and transparent. I can imagine I wouldn’t be distracted by the resolution.

The FOV (Field of View) was also impressive, feeling close to the aforementioned StarVR’s. Of course, the ultra-wide FOV was beneficial to peripheral awareness, but in terms of actual added immersion, I’m not sure if there was much of a real benefit. There were however a few issues which perhaps hindered this. Issues include low brightness from the displays, weird inconsistent warping or geometric distortion when getting farther away from the center of the lenses, an inaccurate distortion profile in general, a low binocular overlap (the volume of FOV that overlaps between both eyes), and a very little bit of ghosting and/or smearing in motion. All of these issues unfortunately formed a barrier against proper immersion in the game. The low binocular overlap seemed to be the biggest immersion killer alongside the warping/distortion, whilst the low brightness the smearing were slight – far beyond that found in the Oculus Rift DK1 of course. It’s uncertain whether more time to play around with the IPD adjustment and time to get used to the distortion would have improved the experience.

Pimax are also using fresnel lenses in this new headset, but interestingly, the ‘godray’ artifacts usually associated with these type of optics were actually very subtle. It’s entirely possible however that the low brightness of the displays may have played a part in that.

So alas, presence was non existent for me. However, playing Lucky’s Tale and Radial-G: Racing Revolved on the headset (most likely done so using the Oculus to SteamVR wrapper ReVive), I could see how, once distortion was reduced and that binocular overlap increased, it might truly represent a new jump in visual quality for VR.

All that aside, how exactly do Pimax expect people to drive 2 sets of 4k displays at higher enough refresh rates needed for good, low latency VR? Enter ‘Brain-warp’. Brain-warp is a technique where you render and display an image to one eye only, and then render and display for the other eye, in a sequence such that one eye is seeing an image and the other isn’t at any given moment in time. This way, they’re actually rendering a single 4K image at 120 times a second, but the user perceives it as a complete 8K image at 120Hz. How? Because that frequency is high enough that we don’t perceive that one eye is blind while the other isn’t, at least for a tiny fraction of a second. It’s like raising one hand to one eye, lowering that hand and raising your other hand to your other eye, and doing that very very fast – so fast that you simply don’t notice it.

brain-warp-pimax-1 — Pimax’s ‘Brain-warp” rendering technique illustrated

Brain-warp is a neat trick then, but not without its downsides and clearly there’s still a huge amount of power needed to drive the displays in this headset. To output 4K at 120Hz, they say you’ll need at minimum an NVIDIA GTX 980 but that’s assuming Async Timewarp is also in play helping resolve dropped frames. Their actual recommended specification however is either dual GTX 1070s, or one GTX 1080.

Another caveat here is that brain-warp also requires “very accurate synchronous fine tuning” according to them, and results in a “ghosting” artifact that appears during motion. That artifact wasn’t very distracting to me in the demo, but it may be more distracting at higher brightness levels or other scenarios.

Pimax say they’re using custom LCDs in their headset in order to drive the display’s response time down and to achieve low persistence. My experience with the headset was that it didn’t exhibit the smearing associated with typical LCD HMDs, but to a smaller extent than you might expect. As such, they staate that this prototype can achieve a the motion-to-photon latency of 18ms.

They still have yet to demonstrate positional tracking and motion controllers, both of which they’ve announced. Valve has of course now opened up their Lighthouse tracking tech for it to be used by anyone on anything. But the company is also working on an inside-out tracking solution which could potentially be included with their system or ‘hacked in’ later by keen tinkerers. It’ll be interesting seeing which route Pimax pick, given the fact that they already supporting SteamVR.

As this was a prototype, there’s no release date yet, but they have announced that the company will take to Kickstarter with the new device. At their Gearbest storefront at least, the price is listed as $599 – but this may well be subject to change.

The post Hands On: PiMAX’s 8K Headset Proves that High FOV VR is Coming appeared first on Road to VR.

January 10, 2017

Pimax 8K VR Headset Not Yet Ready For Primetime, But 4k Model Impresses

Several weeks ago, we published a story about a company called Pimax. The scrappy startup was announcing its CES 2017 lineup and this year that included an 8K (4K per-eye) resolution, 200 degree field of view virtual reality headset. The implications of an HMD that powerful would be highly disruptive to the current VR industry, where resolution and FOV are two of the most difficult problems to solve and scale. We had the chance to try the Pimax headset for ourselves on the show floor at CES and what we found was a device that did have promise, but fell far below the mark of being a Vive or Rift-killer like we were promised.

Form Factor

The Pimax 8K is wide. It’s much wider than any other VR headset on the market today and is reminiscent of the Star VR headset that has moved quietly underground for some time now. The outer limits of the headsets horizontal plane extend a few inches past your head on either side and the overall visor curves in at an angle towards a central point. This makes the entire unit much more curved than either the Rift, Vive, or PSVR. The emphasis here is clearly on prioritizing that big FOV over a sleek or overtly comfortable design.

Fit

The 8K headset fits fairly well on the face and is surprisingly light for such a large headset. The ergonomics are sacrificed a bit however in favor of a wider FOV. The weight all seems to rest on the bridge of your nose and the end result is a new red mark to rival the infamous Oculus oval. The 8K is still in active development, however, so comfort levels could still be increased.

Performance

This is the big question: does the Pimax 8K deliver on the promise of a revolutionized display with industry changing resolution? The short answer is: no.

The long answer is that the Pimax HMD has a lot of promise but stumbles in a few unforgivable areas. The first is a complete lack of positional tracking. The Pimax representatives on site assured me that positional tracking would be added in by this spring, but for now you’re limited to head tracking only which is a far cry below what it will take to unseat the current kings of the VR hill.

The second problem is brightness. All the pixel density in the world doesn’t amount to much if they can’t be properly illuminated. The Pimax undoubtedly has the largest FOV of any VR headset I’ve ever tried, and there was some extra crispness to the image from what I could tell, but its screen was simply too dark to enjoy any of those innovations. The Pimax team took my findings to heart and said that a brighter backlight is expected to be incorporated into their next prototype.

Finally, Pimax headsets do not use OLED displays, instead they have chosen to use software algorithms to aggressively optimize more common LCD screens. They call this technique “brainwarp” and it does work. The LCD images moved with my head movements with less latency than one would expect with little to no bloom distortion (pixels that change color too slowly and cause a blurry image) at all.

Conclusion

The Pimax 8K headset was one of my great hopes for CES 2017 but, unfortunately, it’s still a bit too immature for the big leagues. The company will be launching a Kickstarter and raising additional funding soon and perhaps the extra capital can help them overcome some of these issues and create a more fully realized product. Until then, it’s like they say: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Bonus: A New Challenger Appears

Also at the Pimax CES booth was their older, 4K model. This unit provides 2K resolution to each eye and also employs brainwarp software optimization. Whereas the 8K design was wide and bulky, the 4K edition was lightweight and very similar to the Oculus Rift’s form factor.

The LCD displays inside provided a crisper image than anything I’ve seen in VR personally. This model could have also benefited from a brighter backlight, and there was still no positional tracking, but I felt that the Pimax 4K gave me my best look yet at what a higher resolution future for VR could look like.

Pimax is an innovative and exciting company and while none of their products are ready to come out of the oven just yet, I for one am very excited to see what they can do with just a bit more cooking time.

Image Credits: Pimax, Golem, VRNerds

Tagged with: 200, 4k, 8k, CES 2017, fov, hands on, Headset, pimax

January 5, 2017

PiMAX 8K VR: Erste Eindrücke zum neuen Headset

Unser Freund Jan-Keno Janssen konnte das PiMAX 8K VR Headset auf der diesjährigen CES bereits ausprobieren. Leider fällt der erste Eindruck durchwachsen aus.

Erste Eindrücke zum neuen Headset

Das PiMAX 8K VR Headset möchte durch beeindruckende Spezifikationen imponieren. Das Headset besitzt zwei Displays mit jeweils 3840 x 2160 Pixeln und soll ein Field of View von 200 Grad ermöglichen. Die Oculus Rift und die HTC Vive kommen lediglich auf 1200 x 1080 Pixel pro Auge. Doch ist das PiMAX 8K nur ein Blender?

Die Eindrücke von Keno sind ernüchternd. Das Unternehmen hat das Headset ohne Positional Tracking und ohne die trackbaren Controller gezeigt, obwohl beides zum Lieferumfang gehören sollte. Angeblich wären diese Teile noch auf dem Weg zur CES, aber wir vermuten, dass die Tracker und die Controller schlicht noch nicht fertig sind.

Obwohl das Headset auf zwei LCD Displays mit 60 Hz setzt, soll das Bild beim Bewegen des Kopfes nicht verschmieren. Dies wird erreicht, indem die Frames deutlich kürzer angezeigt werden. Dadurch wird das Bild im Headset aber auch wesentlich dunkler und verliert somit an Glaubwürdigkeit. Laut Keno soll das Headset außerdem ein großes Problem beim Tracking der Kopfbewegungen haben. Das Tracking reagiert viel zu spät und provoziert damit Übelkeit bei Bewegungen des Kopfes. Ob dies mit den zusätzlichen Trackern besser wird, bleibt abzuwarten.

Da zwei 4K Bilder zu viel für die HDMI-Verbindung und den Rechner sind, wird das Headset nicht mit dieser Auflösung beliefert, sondern das Material wird hochskaliert. Trotzdem zeigt die hohe Auflösung seine Wirkung, denn mit diesem Headset sind die Zwischenräume zwischen den Pixeln nicht mehr erkennbar.

Beim Field of View wird zwar der Sichtbereich in der Breite erhöht, aber horizontal kann sich das PiMAX 8K nicht von der Konkurrenz absetzen.

Entweder ist das PiMAX 8K aktuell noch nicht bereit, oder die Entwickler haben uns mehr versprochen, als sie letztendlich einhalten können. Wir werden die Entwicklung im Auge behalten und das finale Produkt testen, sofern es verfügbar ist.

(Quelle: Heise.de)

Der Beitrag PiMAX 8K VR: Erste Eindrücke zum neuen Headset zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

January 1, 2017

PiMAX 8K: Neues Virtual Reality Headset mit 8K und 200 Grad Field of View

Die Virtual Reality Headsets von PiMAX sind derzeit in Deutschland nicht besonders stark verbreitet, doch dieser Umstand könnte sich bald ändern, denn das Unternehmen stellt ein sehr spannendes Produkt in Aussicht. Wir hatten vor einiger Zeit das PiMAX 4K Headset getestet, welches bereits eine 4K Auflösung besitzt. Auch wenn der Bildeindruck recht gut war, so hatte das PiMAX 4K leider kein Positional Tracking und keine Controller und somit war es für die meisten Spiele nicht besonders interessant. Auf der CES 2017 will PiMAX aber zeigen, dass das Unternehmen ein besseres Headset als HTC und Oculus bauen kann.

PiMAX 8K

In der nächsten Woche wird PiMAX ein neues Virtual Reality Headset für den PC vorstellen, welches eine Auflösung von 3840 x 2160 Pixel pro Auge bietet. Die Oculus Rift und die HTC Vive kommen auf lediglich 1200 x 1080 Pixel pro Auge. Außerdem soll das Field of View bei beeindruckenden 200 Grad liegen und somit kommt das Headset fast an das StarVR Headset von Starbreeze heran. Außerdem wird das System mit einer Kamera für das Positional Tracking und trackbaren Controllern ausgeliefert. Auf dem Bild sind auch Kopien der Lighthouse Stationen zu sehen, obwohl auch eine Kamera zum System gehört. Wir sind gespannt, warum das Unternehmen beide Verfahren verwenden will. Das Virtual Reality System von PiMAX sieht wie eine Mischung aus StarVR, HTC Vive und Oculus Rift aus. Theoretisch sollten auch die aktuellen Inhalte für diese Headset mit dem Headset von PiMAX spielbar sein.

Doch auch wenn die Spezifikationen beeindruckend klingen, so sollte man sich von den Daten nicht blenden lassen. Das Headset wird wohl nur auf ein LCD Display setzen und deshalb könnte das Bild bei Kopfbewegungen verschmieren. Dieses Problem hatte das PiMAX 4K Headset bei schnellen Bewegungen auch, doch mit dem neuen Headset will PiMAX das Problem gelöst haben. Angeblich konnte das Unternehmen ein Verfahren entwickeln, welches VR auch mit einem LCD Display verwendbar macht.

Wir sind gespannt auf die ersten Eindrücke von der CES und werden euch informieren, wenn es erste Testberichte zum neuen Headset von PiMAX gibt. Die CES wird spannend!

(Quelle: Upload VR)

Der Beitrag PiMAX 8K: Neues Virtual Reality Headset mit 8K und 200 Grad Field of View zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

December 31, 2016

Pimax to Unveil 4K Per Eye, 200-degree Field of View VR Headset at CES 2017

Being told that something is impossible often is the best motivation to make it so, and that seems to be exactly what is happening with the VR and AR industry.

Earlier this year at Oculus’ developer conference, Oculus Connect, the company’s Chief Scientist, Michael Abrash, stepped on stage to present his predictions for the near term future of VR and AR. Things like eye tracking, wireless desktop hardware, and more he says are still many months to a number of years away – but that sure isn’t stopping folks from trying hard to prove them wrong. The team at Pimax are some of those folks.

Previously, Pimax released a 4K-mobile based VR headset solution but next week at CES, the company will unveil a headset that it claims has 4k per-eye resolution (2x 3840*2160) and a 200-degree field of view – something that Abrash stated wouldn’t be around until 2021. The headset is said to hit sub 18-millisecond latency, and it appears it will also feature positional tracking and hand tracked controllers with what appears to be an amalgamation of Valve’s light house tracking technology and Oculus’ camera based solution.

Now, stats are great and all, but this is CES – land of the vaporware – so we aren’t planning to hold our breath that this new contender will accomplish this feat in a way that provides an excellent experience.

According to the company the headset will use two 4K LCD screens to achieve this resolution, a possible red flag for those who follow the industry closely. Each of the major VR headsets currently use an OLED screen for a number of reasons, including higher speed pixel switching times which help prevent ghosting in the display, deeper black levels, and low persistence which reduces motion blur. In a lot of ways OLED displays are better optimized for a VR experience, though Pimax claims to have made a “breakthrough” in LCD display tech that will improve its response time. We will be sure to report back on this when we get our hands on with it next week.

Low persistence vs Full persistence (Source: ExtremeTech)

As for the field of view (FOV), we look forward to seeing how well executed the optics are. Typically there are sacrifices that come in the optics world when you want to achieve clarity and wide field of view in harmony, want to make it extra wide? Be prepared to see some deep circular reflections in the fresnel lens. That is something we saw in early prototypes of another wide field of view headset – Star VR. If Pimax has managed a lens solution that brings wide FOV with clarity and without artifacts – that would be a massive improvement in immersion, bringing more of the peripheral view in which can be very important for the brain’s ability to recognize things like speed.

Finally, running a VR headset at the current resolution at the required 90 frames per second is tough enough on modern hardware as is – 4k per eye? You’re going to need some kind of super computer. The price point on the hardware to run this headset will likely keep it off consumer shelves for a while unless the team has something miraculous up their sleeve.

So, its not to say that we aren’t excited for this product, just that we cautious about letting the hype go too far on this headset, sight unseen.

Last month it was revealed that TPCast will be releasing an accessory that could make VR headsets wireless, and then earlier this month we were able to assuage our own doubts about the product in an impressive hands on test. And TPCast isn’t the only product vying to cut the cord, a small YC-backed startup Rivvr also is planning to show off a solution at CES this year. It appears we are on the cusp of the next stage of technological innovation in the VR and AR field in 2017, potentially leading up to generation two headsets in 2018 – things are about to get (if you can believe it) even more interesting in the VR and AR industry in the next twelve months.

Tagged with: 4k, CES, CES 2017, Chinese, chinese hmd, HMD, pimax, VR, VR Headset