infiniteye head mounted display hmd virtual reality

I’m heading to Toulouse, France to meet the InfinitEye team and try out their latest prototype. What would you like to know about it and what would you ask the team?

Europe’s Answer to the Oculus Rift?

Stephane, Lionel and Robin, the men that make up Team InfinitEye have very kindly agreed to meet up with me and showcase the HMD that cause quite a stir when news of it’s 210 degree FOV emerged back in August. It’s distinct approach to the problem if high FOV stereoscopy, using twin 7″ LCD Panels and canted Fresnel lenses produces a staggeringly immersive FOV whilst maintaining a higher ‘pixel per eye’ count than the Oculus Rift. Exciting stuff.

infiniteye hmd

I got in touch with Stephane and asked if the team were interested in showcasing their work and speaking to Road to VR and happily they were. I’ll be flying out to Toulouse to spend the day with the team and the InfinitEye, so I wanted to ask you what you’d like to know about this mysterious but promising project.

Drop your burning queries in the comments below and I’ll do my best to get answers to them when I meet the team in a couple of weeks. Thanks in advance and stay tuned for the report.

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Paul James
Based in the UK, Paul has been immersed in interactive entertainment for the best part of 27 years and has followed advances in gaming with a passionate fervour. His obsession with graphical fidelity over the years has had him branded a ‘graphics whore’ (which he views as the highest compliment) more than once and he holds a particular candle for the dream of the ultimate immersive gaming experience. Having followed and been disappointed by the original VR explosion of the 90s, he then founded RiftVR.com to follow the new and exciting prospect of the rebirth of VR in products like the Oculus Rift. Paul joined forces with Ben to help build the new Road to VR in preparation for what he sees as VR’s coming of age over the next few years.
  • an4rchos

    Price, ETA, recomended system requirements. Though I can’t imagine it can beat the Rift in any of these aspects anyway…

  • Andrés

    Palmer Luckey had raised a series questions regarding inherent physical issues that arise from using dual canted displays in an HMD. It would be great if you guys could ask him for specific things to look out for in order to test them during the hands-on.

  • kevin williams

    Following on from Andres comment.

    Palmer has offered advice on the InfinitEye lens construction… question would the team behind the concept talk with Palmer about making the required updates to be relevant?

    Where do they see their system sitting in a post Oculus RIFT world? As a second place solution or as a viable competitor?

    Thanks RTVR for posing these questions to them – and we wish them well.

  • Kevin

    Do your eyes have to diverge (instead of point straight ahead like the Oculus Rift) to look straight ahead?

    I wouldn’t assume not, but who knows given the shape of the thing.

  • Qon

    Oculus has worked a lot on other details also such as their head tracker, latency mitigation, the SDK etc.
    What tracker will InfinitEye use and will it work with games that are qompatible with the Rift?
    Would be interesting to hear more about any qooperation with Oculus.
    What upgrades to the device are they planning for the qonsumer release?
    What display will they use? (with resolution, pixel fill factor, switching times, qontrast etc.)

  • Fernando

    All of the above ;)

  • Paulo Cunha

    All of the above, and please please LET THEM KNOW that I really hope they succeed… Perhaps working together with Luckey..

    Because I SINCERELY, from my heart, HATE the FoV of Oculus Rift…. It totally puts me off of it… I don’t even mind the resolution, cause I know it’s a matter of time til we get better screens.

    But the Oculus FoV, and its tunnel/binocular vision SUCKS… Virtual reality HAS to be 180+ FoV…
    I hope the guys at Oculus are working on this spec too.

  • Fredz

    Will the final version still use the dual 7″ displays or will you use smaller panels, in order to get a smaller form factor and a more appealing look and feel for the HMD ?
    Did you have a try at supporting 1080p or 1200p MIPI panels, since building HDMI to MIPI boards seems to be feasible these days ?
    Could you show a side-to-side comparison of an image taken through the Rift and the InfinitEye lenses with the exact same content to have an idea of the loss in brightness/contrast and general differences in image quality ?
    How did you correct the image for rendering, with a distortion shader like in the Oculus SDK or did you try to model a ray traced solution taking into account the surface equation and refractive index of the fresnel lenses ? Still dual-stacked ?
    Do you intend to go wireless, and with which technology for the display and the tracker ?
    Which tracker are you going to use ? Did you build one yourself, did you try to build the Open Source and wireless Infinite Reality tracker, did you try the STM32F3DISCOVERY ?
    Did you receive your Oculus Latency Tracker if you bought one, how is the latency in your tests ?
    If you’ve got a 3D camera with a sensible interaxial (like the Fuji W3) could you film through the lenses so we may have an idea of what can be expected regarding (lack of) frame synchronization between the two panels ?
    Do you intend to showcase your HMD in Toulouse in the coming weeks/months, when/where ?

    • Fredz

      Oculus Latency Tester, not Tracker.

  • Chris Given

    Please ask if they have any plans to replace the two heavy 7″ displays with perhaps an OLED curved screen which will make the unit lighter and more appealing looking while maintaining the high fov.

    Thanks

    • Chris Given

      I would think a single wrap around OLED panel would also work to eliminate or minimalize frame sync with the two separate screens.