OTOY, one of the leading pioneers of digital light field rendering, has tweeted an intriguing snippet claiming they’ve managed to leverage Valve’s Lighthouse tracking to add positional tracking to Samsung’s mobile phone powered Gear VR headset.

batman-virtual-reality-otoy-18k-cube-map-gear-vr
‘Batman’ Gear VR Experience Featuring OTOY’s Incredible 18k Cubemap Video Tech

OTOY have been making big waves as a result of their pioneering work on digitally rendered light fields for use with virtual reality. Now, they’ve tweeted out a message stating they’ve added positional tracking to Samsung’s Gear VR headset in order to test six degrees of freedom using their technology.

See Also: First Look: ‘Batman’ Gear VR Experience Featuring OTOY’s Incredible 18k Cubemap Video Tech

Gear VR only sports rotational tracking, lacking positional lateral tracking found in the likes of the Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive. OTOY claim to have used Valve’s Lighthouse laser basestation technology to fix this shortfall within a test version of their own software.

Light fields allow positional movement within static and moving rendered or live action imagery and are felt to be the missing piece of the puzzle when it comes to fully immersive captured footage for cinematic virtual reality. The company has been targeting  VR to push its first wave of Octane rendering and cloud streaming technology, with their recent ‘Render the Metaverse’ competition pulling in some spectacular entries demonstrating the potential of the technology.

See Also: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Steam VR’s Lighthouse Tracking System

Valve’s Lighthouse technology is a supposedly license-able technology that powers the positional tracking for SteamVR based hardware, specifically at present the HTC Vive and SteamVR controllers, due to arrive to market this year. The technology has been widely praised for its so called ‘room scale’, precise low latency capabilities. So it’s interesting to see companies apply this technology to hardware outside of Valve’s hardware and software ecosystem.

A Lighthouse Laser Basestation
A Lighthouse Laser Basestation

Quite what this means for the future of positional tracking on Gear VR is unclear, although it’s unlikely that a mobile VR solution will be overly attractive if you have to cart around basestations as well. We shall see what happens.

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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.
  • kalqlate

    “…although it’s unlikely that a mobile VR solution will be overly attractive if you have to cart around basestations as well.”

    That, to me, is not the point. Consider that GearVR + Lighthouse = untethered room-scale VR. The first and only.

    • bji

      Good point. Although I still think someone should just design a rig that holds your cable for you and put these tethered concerns to rest. Something that hangs from the ceiling and reels the cable in and out with configurable tension should do the job nicely.

      • kalqlate

        Being that Valve/HTC are the ones currently most heavily promoting room-scale VR, I suspect they’ll announce a solution by release of the consumer Vive. If so, I imagine that it will be compatible with all tethered VR devices.

    • Michael Miller

      Agreed. To be honest, for what your getting and to be available to consumers right now the Gear VR for $99 is amazing, not to mention this being a possibility for right around the corner, sign me up.

      • kalqlate

        $99 IF you already have a Samsung phone. Yeah, Rift and Vive will have better specs, but if you already have or are considering a Samsung phone, portable, untethered VR can’t be beat. I’m thinking of jumping in with the GearVR as well. Further, with the prospects that someone like OTOY may license and fully implement Lighthouse for GearVR, GearVR becomes an even more attractive VR solution.