And yeah, I think we might actually see an HMD this year with optics and a panel that can finally be useful for desktop usage[1]. My since-returned Quest Pro was maddening close: the optics are absolutely spectacular but the display resolution just doesn’t get there.
[1] Not counting the Apple HMD here. If it does get released this year and has the rumored display resolution it’ll leapfrog the entire industry by an even larger margin than the first retina devices. $3k is a helluva price tag though.
If you have a VR headset that is compatible, why not give it a whirl? It's open source on GitHub.
Comfort is another beast altogether of course.
This is one of the main things these guys have been focusing on from the start. From https://simulavr.com/blog/technical-overview/:
> For optics, our headset will feature a custom 3-lens design which, in tandem with our displays, will provide 36.2 PPD, 100 degree FoV (monocular). For comparison, this PPD is 3.27x better than the Valve Index (11.07 PPD) and 1.76x better than a Quest 2 (20.58 PPD).[1] (Our original target was ~45 PPD, but we decided to trade off more FoV for less PPD). Bottom line: Simula's headset will offer significantly sharper text quality than existing headsets (offering higher PPD than any other portable headset on the market).
From https://simulavr.com/blog/lenses-and-vxr-schematics/:
> We just received updated lenses from our optics suppliers and ran some QA tests on them. TLDR: We're pretty blown away by how good things look in person. Even without software distortion correction, text and other fine details are extremely crisp. We can't wait to show this quality off in our review units.
From https://simulavr.com/blog/first-glimpse-of-review-units/
> Though it's very hard to convey in these videos, the most important thing we can confirm is that the image quality is absolutely incredible. We've been telling people that Simula One pixel density is more than 3x better than the Valve Index, and nearly 2x better than the Quest 2.
Though, this is their word. They've yet to get to a point where they can ship to third-parties for review. They've been very transparent on the development IMO, but it's quite a bit of money so people are cautious and skeptic.
Also, if we decide to make our own RX IP for it, there's a good chance I can open source it. Will have to have a lawyer look over the licensing/NDA terms to make sure we're not messing anything up in that case.
SLVS-EC looks easier to interface with an FPGA at least, presumably the voltage levels are closer to standard, unlike MIPI D-PHY's exotic dual level switching that either requires an external IC, a passive resistor network of borderline compliance, or an FPGA (e.g. Lattice CrossLink) with the correct special inputs.
C-PHY is so incredibly fucked up.
The image pipeline here is for AR passthrough, which has different requirements than SLAM (although nothing's stopping you from using the images for SLAM as well).
