Throughout GDC in downtown San Francisco, I ended by Qualcomm’s demo space to strive the Lynx R-1 combined actuality headset and chat with Lynx’s CEO, Stan Larroque.
This headset made a reputation for itself previously couple of years, and it was good to lastly strive a demo. The app consists of a digital journey out and in of our photo voltaic system, with primary interactions.
Within the demo, you get shut sufficient to the solar, it’s an “immersive” VR expertise during which the cosmos surrounds you. You may pinch-and-pull planets together with your naked hand, which is acknowledged in real-time.
In the event you step again, the cosmos goes away, and the photo voltaic system seemingly floats within the demo room. The change feels fairly pure though you see the true world via a digital camera.
Every eye has a 1600×1600 show decision, which is nice for the demo, and I can solely think about how higher it may possibly get into the long run with 2448×2448 shows. I embody some official video demos representing what I’ve skilled, and I’ll remark additional.
I discovered the Lynx R1 headset extremely attention-grabbing as a result of it might simply deal with VR and AR environments. In VR mode (utterly immersed within the digital world), it felt like a typical VR expertise with low latency and good movement to photon response time.
The AR mode is superb. Typical AR headsets and purposes endure from a really slim discipline of view (~54 levels) as a result of approach projective AR show applied sciences work. Lynx doesn’t use projective show tech, so its AR mode feels extra immersive as a result of the sector of view is best (~90 levels), making the AR expertise extra pure.
Viewing the true world via the digital camera permits Lynx to make use of a Z-buffer to occlude some actual objects (like your hand) if a digital 3D object is in entrance of it. This will increase the realism of the combination of the digital objects to the true world and is inconceivable to do with a projective expertise.
Lastly, the cameras pipeline opens the chance for picture filtering, so you can color-correct or change the HDR firming to show an optimum picture. With totally different sensors, you can even get night time imaginative and prescient. Once more, not doable with a traditional see-thru AR system.
The draw back of the true world via a digital camera is a few lack of particulars, however it may effectively be value it for the immersive AR good points you expertise. At $600, it’s exhausting to complain concerning the picture high quality, and I hope an expert model will come.
The change between VR and AR modes is exceptionally handy relying in your use case (more use cases here). Lynx made it doable to “flip-up” the optics in a similar way to navy night time imaginative and prescient goggles (NVG). As a developer, it’s one thing I’d need to “flip up and repair code.”
The 500g weight of the headset makes it comparatively snug, and I might think about carrying one for prolonged intervals, probably so long as three hours: that’s the theoretical battery life.
Inside, it’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2, an 8-core chip with an Adreno 650 GPU backed by 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. I’m unsure how a lot of the Qualcomm Extended Reality SDK Lynx makes use of, however that package offers most of the options seen within the demo.
General, that was an amazing demo. I didn’t have time to strive video games or different apps, however in one other dialogue with Qualcomm executives, I recommended that it’d be nice to make use of Snapdragon XR gadgets with PC VR video games to squeeze extra worth from these cell XR headsets.
In any case, Qualcomm’s dedication to the XR business is paying huge time as its platform powers a number of the largest names, together with Fb and Lenovo.
Filed in . Learn extra about Augmented Actuality (AR), GDC, Qualcomm and Digital Actuality (VR).