Why Oculus and Samsung are working together

Gear VR is the Samsung union Oculus, launched last December for Note 4, a VR display device. Only three months later, Samsung unveiled its upgraded Gear VR Innovator Edition, which matches the upcoming Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge. Strictly Gear VR series is not a mature mobile VR product, Samsung does not expect this product to sell, after all, only compatible with three mobile phones. The main purpose of this series is to showcase the VR effects of mobile platforms, to accumulate popularity and to gain market feedback, including design, functionality, and content requirements. I'd like to introduce you to this VR-display product (below, the Gear VR represents a generation of Gear Vr,gear VR Innovators edition).

why Oculus will work with Samsung


Hardware Considerations


so many handset manufacturers, why Oculus will choose to cooperate with Samsung, because Samsung in the smartphone industry's leading market share? In fact, Oculus only care about one thing, that is, screen technology which strong.


VR technology in the final analysis is to use the display technology to show the virtual world in front of people, display technology has a direct impact on the user experience, summed up the following points:


resolution refresh rate screen rendering speed PPI (Pixels per Inch)


resolution is, of course, one of the most important parameters of the screen, but because the screen size of the phone is different now, this data can not accurately describe the pros and cons of the display. Refresh rate everyone generally positioned at 60 frames per second, valve and HTC launched the Vive set at 90 frames per second, Sony is insane to set their own Morpheus 120 frames per second. But these two devices are not based on smart phones, for the moment not to mention. The speed of the screen rendering affects the fluency of the VR experience, that is to say, to keep track of the user's perspective. The current mainstream smartphone 3D rendering ability can be very good to complete the task of rendering the screen, the difficulty is to improve the speed of real-time computing screen, but this can be improved by software tuning is not a pure hardware problem.


The rest is the vital pixel density ppi (Pixels per Inch). As I mentioned in my previous article introducing Oculus DK1: To get a wide view, Oculus uses a circular lens solution, which is why it is necessary to distort the image, and why the high PPI screen is needed. Even if note 4 has a 515 PPI, you can see pixels in conjunction with the Gear VR. If you use a less-than-PPI cell phone, those two high power lenses will allow users to experience VR as if they were moving back into the 8bit, with pixels everywhere and jagged. Just imagine who would pay for the VR experience if it turned into a minecraft style?


Software Considerations


mentioned earlier, the screen rendering speed can be improved by software tuning. Android has the advantage of Android to make it easier for developers to achieve universal development, but it is a short board in VR applications. VR applications require a very high level of real-time, at which point the logical layering is cumbersome, slowing the computation and rendering of the picture, and reducing the VR experience. Samsung, though unable to completely modify the bottom of Android graphics code, is absolutely capable of doing as much upper-level optimizations as possible to improve rendering speed to some extent. The good news is that Google announced a few days ago that it would launch the Android VR version, meaning that Google would open the door for VR apps and design and open a more low-level graphics API to support VR applications.


Display and Operation


Display


because the 3D display part of the Gear VR is entirely provided by Oculus, the difference between the hardware and the Gear VR should be no different from that of Oculus, and the Oculus VR view is 96 degrees, unlike Gear 100 degrees.


with Gear VR 4 is a 5.7 inch Super AMOLED screen with resolution 2560x1440,515ppi. Frankly speaking, its visual experience has been very good, stronger than Oculus DK1, and DK2 similar. With the innovator version of S6, although the display size is reduced to 5.1 inches, the PPI is raised to 577. The S6 on PPI will definitely further reduce the display of particle sense, improve the fineness.


Operation


The operation of Gear VR is done by combining the angle of view (detection of the change of view using the built-in IMU of the mobile phone) and the trackpad (also including the return and volume adjustment keys). Touch board can realize sliding operation, complete the function of menu paging; Under the single page option, you can select the target by rotating the head and then use the trackpad to confirm.


personally think that operation is the biggest deficiency of Gear VR, this shortcoming must be improved, otherwise will let the VR experience greatly discount. When using Gear VR, you can't pick up the phone, send and receive information, you can do is concentrate on watching 3D movies or other VR content. Imagine you are watching your favorite movie, suddenly a phone call, there are three kinds of circumstances can happen: let it ring, vibration open words can also experience the feeling of bees to collect honey busy. Or hurriedly take off gear VR, open the front panel, lift the buckle, and then when you get out of the phone, maybe the other party has hung up. Or you successfully received the phone, wiped the screen, put the phone back in, the movie saw less than two minutes, another phone call ...


Samsung also recognizes that the combination of the cart-pull missile is unreliable, and that they are also developing their own gesture-interaction techniques as they introduce a gesture-like leap motion. Three-dimensional gesture interaction is currently the most suitable technology for people to operate VR products, and is the best choice for a new generation of human-computer interaction solutions.


position tracking and content


Position Tracking


Oculus DK2 provides a limited position tracking function, which can be moved about 2 meters. At the GDC show earlier this month, Oculus's latest prototype showed a further increase in the display resolution than DK2, while the location tracking range has improved a lot. Unfortunately, Gear VR has no position tracking function at all. The lack of gesture input function, and no position tracking, so that Gear VR users can not interact with the virtual environment, only to become bystanders, but for the 3D film, it is completely satisfied with the requirements.


content


Samsung specializes in providing Gear VR matching content Services Milk VR. GEARVR also supports some mobile games, such as the Temple Run VR edition. There are some more interesting things, such as using Gear VR to enjoy the best first view of the world's top snowboarding players. In which you can find free demo, by the way, this content is Gear VR exclusive yo.

Write at the end
this time Gear VR upgrades are not very appealing to consumer eyeballs, except for improved display, balanced counterweight, and changes in exterior design without qualitative change. I wonder what the next time Samsung will upgrade Gear VR in the face of increasingly competitive mobile VR? Let's wait and see!
Author: Usens Company engineer Wang