Yo, this is a post of no greater meaning, just me vomiting down what HP and Microsoft should do to make our lives better.
If you have any more ideas, feel free to contact me, I’ll add it.
Reddit discussion thread here.
Microsoft
- Improve tracking algorithms, especially prediction algorithms for when controllers are outside the tracking volume.
- Tapping’s video very nicely illustrates comparison of Quest vs G2 tracking and displays the situations where the WMR tracking could be improved.
- Improve boundary setup – make it point & draw like Oculus has it.
- Fix the power saving mode voltage threshold.
- Enable disabling the power saving mode altogether.
- Add an option to select which batteries are in the controllers so the threshold is set correctly.
- Do you realize many people have to spend like 40 USD for special special batteries just because you have that voltage threshold set too high, Microsoft?
- External tracking camera support – see below.
- Provide metrics for improving the tracking quality – stuff like how much light there is in the room, if there is enough detail in the room, is there anything flickering etc.
- Display a notification if the metrics are outside the optimal zone.
- Show realtime values for the metrics granting users direct feedback, allowing them to optimize their room.
- Add possibility to configure brightness, saturation and contrast for the heeadset.
- Allow to jump directly to SteamVR without even seeing WMR home.
- Add support for more compact tracking rings.
- Make a software tool that would allow users to easily find out their IPD. I think I remember my CV1 had something with horizontal lines that guided me to the up/down placement on my face and vertical lines that guided me to my IPD.
HP / 3rd party
- Make better controllers
- Can be sold separately, should be compatible with all WMR headsets.
- Better haptic feedback
- Capacitive buttons, ideally per-finger tracking
- Single battery should be enough 😀 And not require 1.5V batteries.
- Headset accessories
- Leather face mask – Done!
- Thinner face gasket – Done in G2V2!
- For future headsets
- More cameras/better angles? – Cameras at better angles added for G2V2!
- Maybe add headphone jack on the headset?
- Maybe add usb hub on the headset?
- Wider IPD range
- Tighter IPD slider
- Wireless
Microsoft – External tracking cameras support
This topic got so extensive I’ve made a separate section for it.
The base of this request is to allow customers to buy additional external cameras they could put in the room that would improve tracking. These cameras would work together with the cameras on the headset.
What would this improve/allow?
- Drastically increase the tracking volume of any WMR headset. With multiple cameras, there could be zero blind spots.
- Reduce controller occlusion problems. No janky weapons aiming anymore.
- Allow support for custom trackers (body tracking or any arbitrary object tracking). Those could be battery powered boxes similar to Vive trackers.
- If the external camera would be a Kinect camera, it could potentially allow full body tracking even without the custom trackers.
How it could be implemented/achieved?
This description is for people who say it’s impossible. You guys at Microsoft should know better 😛 Make sure it’s automatic calibration running on background though!
- Both the camera and the headset know positions of the controllers relative to them. So by cross referencing where the controllers are relative to the camera and the headset, you can deduce where the camera is relative to the headset.
- This can be done as a totally automatic background calibration step. The software tracks the controllers from the headset and the camera perspective independently for a few seconds, then cross references the tracking data and deduces camera position in the room.
- Headset always knows it position relative to the room and we can assume that the position of the camera doesn’t change. If it changes, it can automatically recalibrate again.
- Plus they could also try matching room features between the HMD cameras and the external camera.
- You can simply not use data from the external camera until it’s fully automatically calibrated.