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322 points LorenDB | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.211s | source
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jsheard ◴[] No.42143406[source]
From the GitHub this is only capable of 3DoF tracking, which puts it in the same category as the defunct Oculus Go headset, or Google Cardboard. 6DoF is really the bare minimum to qualify as proper VR nowadays.

For the uninitiated 3DoF means the headset only tracks the rotation of your head, not your heads absolute position as you move around, while 6DoF tracking does both. 6DoF is also much harder to implement.

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aziaziazi ◴[] No.42143489[source]
Never understood why my GCardboard couldn’t do that, my phone sure has a bunch of accelerometers and giros. Sure higher and other techs can track better but isn’t it enough for a basic sense of mouvement? For most of the applications I won’t more than a few meter anyway.

Probably some have tried and I’ll be curious to know what prevent it.

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1. grumbel ◴[] No.42149727[source]
See "Pure IMU-based Positional Tracking is a No-go"[1], a position from an IMU starts to drift in a fraction of a second and than shoots off into infinity. Without an absolute reference there is nothing you can do to stop it and the errors will accumulate. It's not just a little bad, it's completely unusable.

A further complication is that the IMUs you find in phones, especially back when all this was new, weren't very good. So even a plain 3DoF experience would suffer from slow response and yaw-drift from lack of magnetometer, which is why GearVR had an extra IMU in the headset and why Daydream required new certified phones with better IMUs.

3DoF can still be good enough for VR180/360 movies, which don't allow movement to begin with. But as far as gaming is concerned, you really do need 6DoF, as even a bit of leaning forward in a chair will make it instantly obvious that the headset motion and the headset visuals are out of sync.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q_8d0E3tDk