Category: varjo

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High-end Headset Maker Teases ‘most anticipated product reveal’ Just Days Before Facebook Connect

Facebook Connect is certainly the marquee VR event this month, but it looks like other companies are hoping to steal a bit of the spotlight. First HTC teased an upcoming product to be revealed next week, and now high-end headset marker Varjo says it plans to unveil its “most highly anticipated product release yet” on October 21st, just days before Facebook Connect on the 26th.

Varjo today announced an upcoming product reveal slated for October 21st. Details are extremely light at the moment, with the company teasing with phrases like “the time has come,” and “this is the one you’ve been waiting for.” And then there’s the ambitious claim that the announcement will “raise virtual reality to a whole new playing field.” You can register for the event here if you’d like to watch it stream live on the 21st at 12PM ET (your timezone here).

Varjo makes high-end enterprise headsets that make other enterprise headsets, like the $1,400 Vive Pro 2 look cheap by comparison. Despite the price, the company’s headsets really do deliver some unmatched features, like true retina resolution at the center of the display, precise eye-tracking with automatic IPD adjustment, best-in-class hand-tracking, and (for their flagship headset) full-color passthrough with a wide field-of-view.

Just a few months ago I went hands-on with the company’s latest flagship device, the XR-3 and came away feeling like the company is continuing to make its headsets better while at the same time making them cheaper. But they’re still far from affordable, even among enterprise headsets, with prices starting at $3,200 (+$800 annually).

Photo by Road to VR

If the company can continue the trend of offering its high-end features at lower and lower prices, it could start to see demand from the lower end of the enterprise market.

That would be great to see, if the company is announcing a new headset on the 21st, but that’s far from certain. Varjo has also been pursuing a range of interesting ideas based on the mixed reality capabilities of its headsets, like the recently announced ‘Varjo Reality Cloud’ which aims to ‘teleport’ users between real world spaces by using the headset to scan the room around them and then stream that space to others.

More recently the company teased an upcoming ‘real-time masking’ functionality for its mixed reality headsets which allows users to select portions of the real-world to bring into virtual reality experiences. In an example below they map out a steering wheel peripheral to be displayed inside of a VR racing game.

Whether its hardware or software that the company plans to reveal on the 21st, they always seem to have something intriguing up their sleeves and we’ll be watching to see what’s next.

The post High-end Headset Maker Teases ‘most anticipated product reveal’ Just Days Before Facebook Connect appeared first on Road to VR.

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Varjo XR-3 Hands-on: Varjo’s Headsets Keep Getting Better, Even as They Get Cheaper

By now it can be said that Varjo is making the world’s most high-end VR headsets, and not just because they’re slapping on a hefty price-tag. With a core premise of ‘retina resolution’ that really delivers, Varjo’s headsets keep getting better even as they’re getting cheaper. Their visual performance offers an early glimpse of what mainstream VR headsets are unlikely to deliver for years to come.

We’ve been following Varjo since even before the launch of their first VR headset. Every time we’ve glimpsed a new headset from the company, there’s been clear progress in their mission to deliver the sharpest visuals of any VR headset. Varjo’s latest headset, the XR-3, is no exception.

During a meeting with the company in Silicon Valley I got fairly extensive hands-on time with the XR-3, both with its VR and AR capabilities. Despite being its least expensive headset yet, it’s also clearly the company’s best so far.

Photo by Road to VR

Cheaper but Not Cheap

Granted, the company’s headsets are far from anything you’d call affordable. At a whopping $5,500 (+$1,500 annually), XR-3 is the high-end of the high-end. But it’s a steal compared to the prior Varjo XR headset which cost $10,000 (+$1,000 annually). Meanwhile, the VR-3 (the model without advanced passthrough or inside-out tracking) has come down to just $3,200 (+$800 annually).

A Better Bionic Display

All of Varjo’s headsets make use of what they call the ‘bionic display’ system which makes use of a large ‘context display’ for a wide field-of-view, with an overlapping ‘focus display’ for true retina resolution (60+ PPD) at the center of the view. That’s two displays for each eye.

Image courtesy Varjo

The company’s earliest prototypes proved that the company’s unique display system really could deliver retina resolution at the center of the image, but it came with a handful of caveats. I used to have to make mockups (like this) to make it clear to people that only the very center of the display was retina quality and that the boundary between the focus display and the context display was quite apparent.

Varjo’s headsets have gotten better about this over the years, and on the XR-3, the boundary between the focus display and the context display is nearly invisible. This is thanks not only to better blending between the displays, but also because the lower fidelity context display (which provides the wide field-of-view) itself has been boosted in resolution significantly over previous models. Even if the XR-3 didn’t have a focus display for retina resolution at the center of the image, the resolution of the context display alone (2,880 × 2,720) exceeds something like the Vive Pro 2 (2,448 × 2,448).

It’s thanks to this boost in resolution that moving your eyes away from the focus display no longer brings an obvious reduction in quality. This makes it feel much more natural to look around with your eyes in XR-3, whereas on earlier headsets it could feel like you had to train yourself not to let your eyes wander from the center of the field-of-view. This pairs nicely with an expanded overall field-of-view compared to the prior version of the headset, which jumps from 87° to 115°, according to Varjo.

In practice, donning the headset reveals a higher fidelity view than I’ve seen in any other VR headset to date. The center of the field-of-view is truly ‘retina resolution’—the screen-door effect is non-existent and there’s not a hint that the center of the image is even made of pixels.

Photo by Road to VR

While the fidelity of the image is truly world class, there is one notable issue that kept me from being lost in it entirely. On XR-3 I noticed a surprising amount of pupil swim, which makes the image look wobbly as you move your head around, especially when you lock your eyes onto an object in the scene and continue to move your head. The effect was bad enough that I expect it will cause discomfort to some users who are very sensitive to motion sickness.

I don’t know the exact cause of the pupil swim on XR-3. It could be inherent in the lenses, or it could be a calibration issue. And while I didn’t have the company’s other headsets to go side-by-side with, I don’t recall noticing it so clearly on prior models. Hopefully it’s something that can be fixed.

Continue on Page 2: Passthrough AR & Ergonomics »

The post Varjo XR-3 Hands-on: Varjo’s Headsets Keep Getting Better, Even as They Get Cheaper appeared first on Road to VR.

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The VR Job Hub: Varjo, Moth+Flame & Immersive VR Education

VR Job Hub

Every weekend VRFocus gathers together vacancies from across the virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) industry, in locations around the globe to help make finding that ideal job easier. Below is a selection of roles that are currently accepting applications across a number of disciplines, all within departments and companies that focus on immersive entertainment.

Location Company Role Link
Helsinki, Finland Varjo Senior 3D Graphics & Rendering Developer Click Here to Apply
Helsinki, Finland Varjo Senior Visual Pipeline Engineer Click Here to Apply
Helsinki, Finland Varjo Senior C++/3D Graphics Developer Click Here to Apply
Helsinki, Finland Varjo Unreal Engine Relations Engineer Click Here to Apply
Helsinki, Finland Varjo Full Stack Developer Click Here to Apply
Helsinki, Finland Varjo Lead Full Stack Developer Click Here to Apply
Helsinki, Finland Varjo Backend Developer Click Here to Apply
Helsinki, Finland Varjo Cloud Operations Engineer Click Here to Apply
Helsinki, Finland Varjo Senior Cloud Automation Engineer Click Here to Apply
Remote Moth+Flame Unity VR Developer Click Here to Apply
Brooklyn, New York Moth+Flame Logistics & Implementation Associate (Part Time) Click Here to Apply
Remote Moth+Flame Federal Sales Manager Click Here to Apply
Waterford, Ireland Immersive VR Education HR Manager Click Here to Apply
Waterford, Ireland Immersive VR Education Character Artist Click Here to Apply
Waterford, Ireland Immersive VR Education Senior QA Automation Engineer Click Here to Apply
Waterford, Ireland Immersive VR Education Senior Unity Game Developer Click Here to Apply
Waterford, Ireland Immersive VR Education Senior Software Engineer (Node.js) Click Here to Apply

Don’t forget, if there wasn’t anything that took your fancy this week there’s always last week’s listings on The VR Job Hub to check as well.

If you are an employer looking for someone to fill an immersive technology related role – regardless of the industry – don’t forget you can send us the lowdown on the position and we’ll be sure to feature it in that following week’s feature. Details should be sent to Peter Graham (pgraham@vrfocus.com).

We’ll see you next week on VRFocus at the usual time of 3PM (UK) for another selection of jobs from around the world.

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Hands-on: Varjo Reality Cloud is a Platform for Capturing & Sharing Physical Spaces in Real-time

Varjo today announced its new Varjo Reality Cloud platform, a device-agnostic VR meeting platform which can scan and share physical spaces in real-time using the depth sensors on its latest XR-3 headsets. The company doesn’t have a specific release date for the tech just yet, but is presenting a glimpse of what it plans to deliver in the future. Road to VR got an early look at the new tech.

Varjo Reality Cloud

Varjo is building a virtual meeting platform not unlike we’ve seen before, but with one key difference: the company plans to leverage the wide field-of-view depth sensors on its Varjo XR-3 headset to allow users to easily capture their surroundings and use it as the basis for virtual meetings. What’s more, beyond just a static capture, the Varjo Reality Cloud platform will continuously update the portion of the environment that’s in the headset’s view while the meeting is happening. That means if there’s something real and relevant in the host’s environment—like a book, product, or even another person—the virtual viewers will be able to see that thing moving and updating in real-time (as long as the host is actively looking at it).

The idea melds well with XR-3’s existing high-quality passthrough capabilities. During normal use of the headset it’s easy to toggle on the headset’s pass-through view to see the environment around you, which means if you were sharing your local environment through the Varjo Reality Cloud, it could seem like others in the meeting were standing right in the same room as you.

Varjo thus likens its Reality Cloud platform to ‘teleportation’, though I wouldn’t say it goes that far just yet.

Hands-on With the Prototype

I got to see an early prototype of the Varjo Reality Cloud in action during a meeting with the company in Silicon Valley. Using the Varjo XR-3 headset, I was shown a pre-recorded example of a Varjo Reality Cloud meeting space with a person standing in the center of the room talking, gesturing, and showing me some objects from around the room. While most of the room around me was static, the person was essentially being ‘filmed’ by an XR-3 headset, which meant their movements (and anything in a certain area around them) were being updated in real-time.

To be clear, the environment I was seeing wasn’t just flat or even 180 footage, it was an actual volumetric space, and so was the person that was standing inside the room. And while I could definitely make out the specific person I was looking at and the room around me, in this prototype phase the fidelity leaves a lot to be desired. The room scan and the person in front of me were assembled from a splotchy point-cloud of colored dots—far from the incredible quality of several of Varjo’s photogrammetry demos that I’ve seen in the past.

While it’s almost certain that the Varjo Reality Cloud won’t look as good as careful pre-captured photogrammetry any time soon, the company says that what I was looking at is merely a proof of concept, and that improvements in fidelity are expected as they move forward with development.

One important part of that ongoing development will be moving the whole thing into the cloud. While the demo I saw was a pre-recorded example of the Varjo Reality Cloud, ultimately the company plans to stream the captured environments from the cloud to any participants in the room, leaving the bulk of the computing to be done in the cloud. To do so at the highest possible quality on its ultra-high resolution headsets, the company says it has developed a foveated compression algorithm to cut the stream down to just “single megabytes per second.” My understanding is that that algorithm specifically takes advantage of the eye-tracking that’s built into Varjo headsets.

Device Agnostic

But Varjo headsets aren’t the only devices that will be able to join the Varjo Reality Cloud. While it’ll take an XR-3—with its equipped depth-sensors—to capture and stream the environments, the company says that it’s taking a device-agnostic approach to participants. The company expects that participants joining Varjo Reality Cloud sessions could be on computers, smartphones, tablets, and other VR headsets too.

Continued on Page 2: Cool, but Revolutionary? »

The post Hands-on: Varjo Reality Cloud is a Platform for Capturing & Sharing Physical Spaces in Real-time appeared first on Road to VR.

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Varjo Teases Its “biggest announcement ever” Coming Later This Week

Varjo, the Finland-based company making enterprise headsets with industry-leading specs, is getting ready to reveal something big on June 24th.

Urho Konttori, Varjo founder and Chief Product Officer, teased that the company’s next reveal will be “so epic that it’s probably the biggest announce ever by Varjo.”

In the 20-minute showcase, Varjo promises to show off its “next big thing,” something that the company says will demonstrate “how the physical and the digital merge into a single experience, changing human interaction and universal collaboration for good.”

Varjo is known for producing ultra high-end headsets which push the boundaries of display resolutions. With the addition of eye-tracking and mixed reality applications, Varjo headsets are built for enterprise appeal, and are priced in thousands as a result.

Image courtesy Varjo

The company’s latest headsets, VR-3 and XR-3, were revealed back in December 2020; considering the company’s promise to merge the physical and digital, it’s possible we may be getting a new variant that focuses more on the mixed reality side of things.

Varjo sets itself apart from other headset makers by incorporating two displays for each eye: a small, high-density microdisplay at the center, and a larger, more conventional display to fill out the field of view. These two displays are blended together nearly seamlessly, which essentially makes Varjo’s headsets an industry leader in perceived resolution (sometimes referred to as ‘retina resolution’) whilst providing a fairly substantial field of view.

The reveal, which Varjo is dubbing a “world premiere,” is going to be held on June 24th, 2021, at 12:00 pm ET (your local time). You can also sign up here to watch it live.

The post Varjo Teases Its “biggest announcement ever” Coming Later This Week appeared first on Road to VR.

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Varjo Enterprise Headsets are now OpenXR 1.0 Compliant

Varjo XR-1 Developer Edition

Finnish hardware manufacturer Varjo makes expensive, enterprise-grade virtual reality (VR) headsets which you might think run on very exclusive software. While companies do need to sign-up to a subscription, Varjo has ensured developers find it easy to support the headsets by making them fully compatible with the OpenXR 1.0 standard.

Varjo XR-3 and VR-3

This sees all of Varjo’s headsets achieve full compliance with OpenXR 1.0, from the very first VR-1 and XR-1, to the latest VR-3 and XR-3 models which arrived at the end of 2020. The standard was developed by a consortium of companies led by Khronos Group, with the specification established back in 2019. Varjo joins the likes of Valve, Microsoft and Oculus in supporting OpenXR 1.0.

With Varjo headsets now compatible with OpenXR 1.0 developers should find it much easier to bring their projects to these enterprise-focused headsets. And make use of their particular features. The current VR-3 and XR-3 generation feature Varjo’s ‘human-eye resolution’ display which is comprised of a uOLED Focus area at 1920 x 1920 px per eye (70 PPD) and an LCD Peripheral area at 2880 x 2720 px per eye (30 PPD) with a 115° field of view. Being a mixed reality device, the XR-3 also has two front cameras; built-in LiDAR and stereo RGB video pass-through.

“We are proud to extend the OpenXR standard to our professional customers across training and simulation, industrial design, medical, research, and academia, to accelerate the merging of virtual and physical worlds,” said Urho Konttori, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Varjo in a statement. “Offering a unified reality for developers is an important step on Varjo’s journey in bringing immersive technology to every workplace – and eventually revolutionizing computing for all.” 

Varjo XR-3

“Varjo has been a valuable contributor to OpenXR since 2019. Varjo’s VR and XR headsets were some of the first to publicly demonstrate support for OpenXR,” said Brent Insko, Lead XR Architect at Intel and OpenXR Working Group Chair. “Today, we are extremely happy to add Varjo and their unique approach to delivering higher visual fidelity in virtual and mixed reality experiences to the growing list of companies fully supporting the OpenXR 1.0 specification.”

The expectation is that all future VR/AR headsets will support OpenXR’s royalty-free standard to ensure a thriving ecosystem where creators don’t have to worry about individually porting projects between devices. As OpenXR continues to be adopted VRFocus will let you know.

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Varjo XR-3 And VR-3 Headsets Now Shipping Worldwide

Varjo announced that its XR-3 and VR-3 virtual and mixed reality headsets are now shipping worldwide.

The enterprise-level headsets, announced late last year, includes automatic IPD adjustment, eye tracking and foveated rendering. They have an inside-out tracking solution, while also being compatible with SteamVR base stations, as well as Ultraleap hand tracking support. The display is a dual resolution “bionic” display which has a “Focus area (27° x 27°) at 70 PPD uOLED, 1920 x 1920 px per eye” with a “Peripheral area at over 30 PPD LCD, 2880 x 2720 px per eye.”

The XR-3 has some specific mixed reality features as well, such as a LiDAR depth scanner and stereo RGB video passthrough running at 90Hz.

The headsets launched last year but are now shipping worldwide. However, they’re only available to enterprise customers for a hefty price starting at around $3000 for the VR-3 and going up to just under $5500 for the XR-3 model with the added mixed reality capabilities. You can read more about the complete specs available on both headsets over on the announcement post from last December.

Varjo also announced that it is now part of Unity’s Verified Solutions Partner program, which means that the new Varjo headsets are guaranteed compatibility with Unity. The headsets are also compatible with other major engines and platforms, such as Unreal, Lockheed Martin Prepar3d, VBS BlueIG and FlightSafety Vital.

The Varjo XR-1, which preceded the XR-3 (there was never an XR-2 headset), was considered a success by the company and helped them raise another $54 million in funding midway through last year. The XR-1 was a pricier option, coming in at $10,000 — a good $4,500 above the price of the new XR-3.

The XR-3 and the VR-3 are now shipping worldwide and available to purchase at an enterprise level for $5,496 and $3,195 respectively.

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The VR Job Hub: Strivr & Varjo

VR Job Hub

Every weekend VRFocus gathers together vacancies from across the virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) industry, in locations around the globe to help make finding that ideal job easier. Below is a selection of roles that are currently accepting applications across a number of disciplines, all within departments and companies that focus on immersive entertainment.

Location Company Role Link
Palo Alto, CA Strivr Staff Accountant Click Here to Apply
Palo Alto, CA Strivr Senior Product Designer – Portal Click Here to Apply
Palo Alto, CA Strivr Engineering Manager – Data platform Click Here to Apply
Palo Alto, CA Strivr Senior Software Engineer – Frontend Click Here to Apply
Palo Alto, CA Strivr Staff Software Engineer – Data Platform Click Here to Apply
Palo Alto, CA Strivr Technical Support and Escalation Engineer Click Here to Apply
Palo Alto, CA Strivr Intern – Software Engineer (Summer 2021) Click Here to Apply
Palo Alto, CA Strivr Senior Project Manager Click Here to Apply
Palo Alto, CA Strivr People Operations Lead Click Here to Apply
Palo Alto, CA Strivr Senior Product Manager Click Here to Apply
Palo Alto, CA Strivr Senior Product Manager, Platform Click Here to Apply
Helsinki, Finland Varjo Senior 3D Graphics & Rendering Developer Click Here to Apply
Helsinki, Finland Varjo Senior Visul Pipeline Engineer Click Here to Apply
Helsinki, Finland Varjo Senior C++/3D Graphics Developer Click Here to Apply
Helsinki, Finland Varjo Senior Cloud Computing Engineer/Architact Click Here to Apply
Helsinki, Finland Varjo Lead Full Stack Web Developer Click Here to Apply
Helsinki, Finland Varjo Developer Relations Engineer Click Here to Apply
Helsinki, Finland Varjo Sourcing Manager Click Here to Apply
Helsinki, Finland Varjo Sales Development Rep Click Here to Apply
Helsinki, Finland Varjo Sales Solution Engineer, EMEA & APAC Click Here to Apply

Don’t forget, if there wasn’t anything that took your fancy this week there’s always last week’s listings on The VR Job Hub to check as well.

If you are an employer looking for someone to fill an immersive technology related role – regardless of the industry – don’t forget you can send us the lowdown on the position and we’ll be sure to feature it in that following week’s feature. Details should be sent to Peter Graham (pgraham@vrfocus.com).

We’ll see you next week on VRFocus at the usual time of 3PM (UK) for another selection of jobs from around the world.

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Besondere VR-Brillen in Deutschland bestellen

Neben der HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Valve Index und den Windows Mixed Reality Brillen gibt es noch viele weitere VR-Brillen und VR-Zubehör, für ganz spezielle Einsatzgebiete oder für professionelle Anbieter. Doch wo diese Hardware bestellen?

Besondere VR-Brillen in Deutschland bestellen

Wenn man nach besonderen VR-Brillen sucht, bleibt einem oft nur eine lange Recherche und ein paar Formulare, um bei den Herstellern ein Interesse anzumelden.

Während ihr bei Amazon und Co. zwar die gängige Hardware für Konsumenten erhaltet, bietet Bestware aktuell ein echtes Schlaraffenland für VR Nerds. Ihr bekommt dort beispielsweise die Brillen von Varjo, XRSpace, Pico, XTAL, HP oder Handschuhe von Manus.

Dies ist keine bezahlte Werbung, sondern ein Tipp an unsere Community. Ich wollte in erster Linie dieses Angebot mit euch teilen, da ich selbst von der aktuellen Auswahl überrascht war und mich sehr freue, dass es einen einfachen Weg gibt, um an Hardware zu gelangen, die nicht bei den üblichen Händlern gelistet wird.

Wenn ihr unsere Arbeit unterstützen wollt, könnt ihr dennoch gerne den Affiliate Link benutzen. Ihr zahlt keinen Cent mehr und wir bekommen etwas Unterstützung.

Der Beitrag Besondere VR-Brillen in Deutschland bestellen zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

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Varjo launches human-eye resolution XR and VR headsets

Varjo XR-3 and VR-3 (Image courtesy Varjo.)

Helsinki based Varjo has launched its next generation XR and VR headsets with human-eye resolution for use in industries where high visual accuracy is important, including training and simulation, engineering, research, medical and design.

With most of the world working remotely and demand for virtual and mixed reality on the rise, Varjo aims to offer the most cutting-edge XR and VR tools for professional application.

“The new XR-3 and VR-3 are the most advanced, zero-compromise devices on the market and suitable for any professional workflow,” said Urho Konttori in a press release, co-founder and chief Innovation Officer of Varjo.

These third generation headsets promise double the human-eye resolution area compared to previous versions. There are two panels for each eye, with a resolution of 1920 by 1920 in the center of your vision and a 2880 by 2720 panel for the rest of the eye, a marked improvement over  earlier versions’ 1920 by 1080 center of vision and 1440 by 1600 panel for each eye.

Both devices have a 115 degree field of view, claim to have color accuracy that mirrors the real world, a refresh rate of 90 Hz, and the “world’s fastest and most accurate eye tracking” according to Varjo at up to 200 Hz with foveated rendering which reduces peripheral image quality where you aren’t looking in order to make the display run faster.

Comfort is also improved with a three-point precision fit headband, active cooling, 40% lighter weight, and an ultra-wide optical design for removing eye strain and simulator sickness.

The VR-3 is solely for VR use, but the new XR-3 combines AR with VR through the use of a LiDAR scanner, stereo RGB video pass-through and inside-out tracking, allowing XR-3 users to determine the device’s precise position in the environment without the need for external sensors.

These devices are meant for enterprise use, and the price tag reflects this.  The XR-3 is available for $5,495 and requires a Varjo Subscription, which starts at $1,495 for a required one-year base subscription.  The VR-3 can be purchased for $3,195 along with a one-year subscription that starts at $795.

This might sound costly to the casual VR user, but the original XR-1 retailed at around $10,000, so the new price point should help organizations looking to implement AR and VR into their work environment.

So far professional users are impressed by the visual acuity and realism of this new generation of devices. “The human-eye resolution VR devices have made it possible for the astronauts of the Boeing Starliner flight crews to participate in training sessions remotely with the same level of realism and interactions as if they were sitting in the physical simulators,” said Connie Miller, product specialist at Boeing, in a statement.