OT: Could the Microsoft Hololens Revolutionize Sim Racing?

A week ago, Microsoft unveiled the Hololens, a bright and innovative new Augmented Reality headset. I explore the different ideas that could help innovate the world of Sim Racing:

http://simracingpaddock.com/sim-hw/microsoft-hololens-sim-racing-application/

What are your thoughts on this interesting piece of tech? Do you think it could fill a niche that the Oculus Rift is somewhat leaving out? I think that AR may have more practical applications outside of gaming. What do you think?

 

Hmm, well I mean like all the new tech I read about, it all sounds really interesting for sure. I just wonder what the companies like OR are working on to deal with the lack of external visibility. I have a feeling that they would want to try and crack it as part of their own product.

The hologram type thing would be quite funny modelling though. It would be cool to take a car model you have and then find the real car, overlay it and see how it matches up XD

 

I still think the future of simulators will be virtual reality headsets. AR i think, as the name says, to enhance reality with data.

 

i just watched the ms hololense live demo and found it rather uninspiring.

 

cast ir I think works differently -it projects an image onto a surface within your surrounding area


hololens I assume is lcd panel ( or OLCD ? ) lens's with optics which the user looks through, the digital image(s) are within the lens

headsets like oculus would need cameras at eye positions to display the real surrounding area with the augmented images combined on the internal screen

sim racing needs a rift style VR so the whole view is virtual,
some would like cams to display their keyboards & buttons though but that's another use

 

It has nothing to do with holograms, typical marketing!

 

+1 just like making a very basic 3d model of a quad copter and then "making" it into reality.

I can't think of a single product ms has marketed/hyped that lived up to it's expectation in the last decade for me.

Don't get me wrong though, it's sort of cool but doesn't feel potentially revolutionary to me. Perhaps that's just the after taste left by the live demo for me or perhaps ms's track record of being ahead of the curve.

 

AR is as it says, to augment reality and VR is to replace your reality with another one.

Racing 100% in the rift I can say that I feel like I am sitting in each and every car I drive, it looks like I am there. I have no problems with the buttons on my wheel or my shifter.

So given that I have the full in car experience, what does AR do better? What is in my room that looks nothing like a car that I would rather see and then augment with something?

 

I think it depend if the image projected by these goggles can completely obscurate real world , maybe you just need to have a black or white panel just beyond the lenses, something similar to sun shade on military jet helmets.

 

I was really excited about Oculus Rift. Even bought the dev kit 1. But it seems they are still struggling with resolution problems and input lag. Still have hopes but not early as i thought at beginning.
And that facebook acquisition... gives me the impression of developing the hardware mainly for gaming get to second plan

 

Right now the dk2 gives me everything I need in a display system & total VR
Low latency & seamless tracking
(I'd like more resolution of course)

AR is for a completely different market, maybe it would really shine in first person shooters in a real open world environment & digital
objects+unfriendly's added to interact with, the user would move around with controller guns etc

Or looking around a house but changing colour schemes on the fly in realtime in order to help with decorating options etc
The list goes on, but I can't see where AR works in racing simulation , VR is a perfect fit for this

Ps I'll be straight in to preorder the rift CV1 just for the increased resolution
Hoping preorders will be announced at GDC this early March

 

Yeah, that was certainly the case with dk1 but the dk2 has zero perceived input lag now and the resolution was a monumental perceived step up improvement despite only going from 1280x800 to 1920x1080 which may not seem like a lot but it's double the pixel density or equivalent to 42% more ppi.

When i received my dk2 i wasn't expecting it to be as good as it was (though still plenty of room for improvement ofc) based on how hideously poor the resolution was on the dk1. I put my dk1 on ebay the day after it arrived. I put my dk2 on ebay 8 weeks after it arrived. I was truly impressed with it and only sold it for some much needed quick cash at the time.

I think when the resolution doubles once more at 2560x1600, it'll hit a minimum sweet spot and be a keeper. I eagerly await for that day with bated breath.

 

Paul, I agree there certainly are uses for AR in sims. It's obviously an each to his own thing.

You have pointed out a couple of areas where it's beneficial and that is certainly true and where augmented reality stands out, i.e. the need to interact with your real environment. I have looked at castAR in the past and because of the cost being very low I expected to get one for use with my flight sim which was just as you described - many buttons to interact with.

Then I tried VR and thought there is no way I can go back. I will have to fly planes that I can interact with the cockpit in the VR environment through some other mechanism or with only my hotas, even if that means I go back to only ww2 sims.

You are right with F1, for training they dont need the VR that a consumer may love, their focus is not on having fun but performing specific tasks like using the wheel. For these applications, other than cost and easy on the gpu I dont see the benefit over a projection system though. As you say, it only works where your projection screen is.

I am lucky, I dont drive cars requiring me to fiddle constantly with BB etc so I am stoked I can sit in a V8 and see exactly the same display that they have, or hop in the bmw GT3 and see exactly the same dash display they have etc. For you average racer like me it's an awesome thing. I did build a custom dash, I cut it out on my laser, put in the SLI-PRO and thought I would miss it all but not at all. In the end I was trying to make something a bit like a good car has and now I have what the real car has in every car.

 

That was probably my biggest worry before trying OR. After trying it I feel completely satisfied/safe. It is not an issue for me.

I think this is the only proper way how you can get to know whether it is or is not good for you. I think using this device can be a matter of personal preferences/physical abilities/expectations. But I repeat something what I wrote somewhere here: I expect most of the simracers will use such kind of device, the benefits of perception the sim world in proper dimensions primarily, combined with ease of use and the low price are simply too seductive.

 

In answer to the original question: sure, the Hololens could revolutionize sim racing, or at least make a big impact, but probably only after a lot more hardware and software development.

I watched the Microsoft webcast last week and thought this part was pretty interesting (realize that I am a computer guy going back for 35 years) because I had been wondering what the next big "thing" would be. I don't know if this is it, but it'll be interesting to see if it takes off. I'd think they should work on making that helmet a little smaller.

I'd be afraid to know how much the Hololens will cost. Plus, the Windows Hologram APIs are only part of Windows 10.

 

Ive wondered if green/blue screen tech could be incorporated with the rift i.e if they were to put a camera on the front of the rift and you were to put a green/blue screen (not sure what they use now ) under and down and infront and around what would be your viewing area in the rift , and then overlay your arms , wheel ect inside the rift . Could something like that work ?. They do it on the weather every night .

EDIT: But of course you couldn't wear blue/green or you would have no legs like Steve Carell in Anchorman 2

 

I watch the full 2 odd hour preview from MS the other day. Apart from nearly fulling to sleep....
Hololens;
I don't thing this Hololens directly will be used by the sim racer.
But a modder? Apart from the cost of it and the software that'l go with it could find a use for it. The cost isn't said but let's be serious, It wont be within the reach of very many people at all so on that alone makes this thread mute.

Windows10;
Now this dose look and sound not to bad. Unlike Vista that was/is just .... and now Win8 that's just for social media users. Not editors, Win10 seems to have the best of both worlds.

Conference board;
I really like the conference board they previewed. Being in a mod team that has members all over the world it could bring us all together in one place, (so to speak) haha... Sharing ideas and explaining things would be so much easier then screwing around on Skype like we do now..

Again though, cost would be the greater factor of not being a possibility for this because it did look like the screen (monitor) is apart of the package.

 

You might be happily surprised to know that most people feel their in game hands become their own. In a racing sim we are lucky that the arm movements match what we are doing.

In other games you might get the feeling they avatar is yours but then it does something that doesnt relate at all to what you are doing and the sense or realism can be lost.

In racing most people have found that you brain is fooled easily by the in game avatar arms and it feels very natural, the wheel moves just like it is IRL and the deception is convincing

Most likely you will feel the same, it would be unfortunate if not.

 

now when I am thinking why it is not a problem I can find one simple possible explanation:
even when I can see my hands, they are out of my visual perception. there are far more important things to focus, for the first track and environment, visible parts of the vehicle, their relative position etc from which I can recognize the situation. and actually I do not need to see my hand to know their position even with closed eyes you can feel your hands and arms. with closed eyes you can touch another parts of your body.

maybe it can be problem for somebody who uses extensively the tape on the top of the wheel rim and visually points the rim to the specific marks on the vehicle chassis or the track

 

You are very confused. It is true that you will have to try the Oculus Rift Consumer Version 1 (NOT DK2) and see if it makes you feel sick because of latency. Apparently a very low percentage of people will still be affected by it in this first iteration (less than 5% according to OculusVR). However, It is physically impossible that you will feel sick because your hands wouldn't match your own. Motion sickness is caused by the discordance in the data fed to the eyes and the data fed to the inner ear (which controls balance). When this data doesn't match, the brain thinks something is wrong and that you might have just been poisoned. This creates the nausea and disconfort which should bring such poison out of the system. When looking at a screen, some people's brains think that they are actually moving and they should be feeling that, but the inner ear knows you are sitting still and this will cause the discordance that will make you feel sick.

In IRL cars the opposite happens. If you look at the inside of the car, you won't see any movement, but your inner ear will feel it. Again this will cause motion sickness for the same reason. Your hands or any other part of the body have nothing to do with it

Then there is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuLTRfgv0os
The future is a hand tracking system with unnoticable latency, that lets you set up your wheel in a way that matches your virtual wheel. This will mean that you will be able to grab and push the buttons and actually see what you are doing.

Your idea of AR is totally wrong and wouldn't even be half as good as VR for simulations. You can have a good IRL cockpit and keep it with AR, but in the end that is all the 3D you will have. Your view of the simulator will be flat because AR doesn't create depth for things that aren't actually there. You can create screens that cover everything that is not your cockpit, but they will be 2D.

F1 teams will use VR hands down. They just have to use the same cockpit in game than in reality, and then track the body perfectly. Bang, you are there and can press the buttons on the real world wheel, and you will see your virtual self doing exactly the same thing in the virtual world

The future is VR and hand tracking, we will be able to complain, celebrate, give the finger, salute other drivers after finishing, etc