returns to Pandora after thirteen years. On December 16, "Avatar: Path of Water" was released simultaneously in mainland China and North America. The current Douban score is 8.2, which is much lower than the original score of 8.8. The reason is easy to understand. As a commercial blockbuster with visual special effects and sci-fi futurism as its main selling point, it will be difficult for the audience to exclaim the same way in the theater thirteen years later.
For example, the "spiritual link" method used to connect the male protagonist's body and Pandora's body was so unconstrained and unimaginable at the time that it made people imagine. But now with the continuous advancement of VR technology, we can also "link" to virtual time and space after wearing a headset.
Of course, the zero-delay synchronization and ultra-high-precision control link method in "Avatar" is still the ultimate goal of VR, but there are already some brave pioneers getting closer and closer to this goal.
For example, the latest E4 launched by Dapeng VR brings 0.1s high-speed response, millimeter-level tracking accuracy, ultra-low latency and high stability of the real-life version of "Psychic Link" - Hawkeye Vslam 4cam positioning system.
The crucial "VR rudder"
Before discussing the positioning technology of Dapeng E4, another question needs to be clarified: what does positioning technology mean for VR?
If VR is a big ship sailing in virtual time and space, then positioning technology is its "rudder". VR equipment completely deceives the eyes to provide a realistic world. If the body's visual perception and motion perception cannot be matched in time, it will not only reduce the gaming experience, but also cause symptoms such as dizziness.
Therefore, whether the positioning technology is excellent or not is crucial to the actual experience of VR products.
For a long time, VR positioning solutions have been mainly divided into two types: Outside-in and Inside-out. The former achieves large-scale detection by deploying sensors in the surrounding environment (i.e. base station) that is not directly connected to the helmet or human body, and is generally used to support multi-person interaction application scenarios.
Dapeng E4 chose the Inside-out positioning solution with better portability, lower hardware cost and looser space requirements. There is no need to set up a positioning base station, and positioning can be completed by relying on the camera that comes with the VR headset. When you go to a friend's house to play " Half-Life ", you don't need to move the base station to tire out "Half-Life" first. However,
abandoned the base station and adopted an Inside-out solution to "reduce the burden" on players. While achieving excellent portability, it also wants to achieve the same positioning effect, which also puts forward higher requirements for device hardware, algorithms and positioning tracking solutions. To this end, Dapeng VR has made more efforts.
Technical investment behind high accuracy
The first is the head-mounted display part. Based on factors such as positioning accuracy, speed and cost, Dapeng VR E4 uses vision (V) + inertial sensor (I) to form the Vslam implementation system. Dapeng VR team conducted development and design work based on Intel Movidius high-performance VPU. While redesigning the sensor camera module, it also brought a new head-mounted hardware layout.
Dapeng E4 uses 4-channel ultra-wide-angle tracking sensing cameras and higher-precision IMU inertial navigation sensors, which not only achieves a balance between speed and accuracy during high-speed calculations, but also better achieves rapid relocation and closed-loop detection in fast-moving scenes. In addition, a large number of edge computing and distributed computing applications also reduce the pressure on the host platform.
In addition, the entire Vslam system of Dapeng E4 also has unparalleled advantages in machine vision positioning recognition. The efficient map structure can be used for map sharing between devices. It has good environmental robustness and can overcome the influence of light changes. The positioning system is not affected by camera parameters (gain and exposure) and can establish stable spatial geometric relationships, greatly improving the accuracy of mapping and positioning.
Especially the two points of fast relocation and environmental robustness are huge blessings for VR games. Take the popular VR game "Bonelab" as an example. This game emphasizes physical interaction, and it is often necessary to quickly switch perspectives during battles. With the support of the Hawkeye Vslam positioning system, Dapeng VR E4 will not experience "frame drops when turning the head, loss of control when shaking" during the game, so that the fun of the game will not be damaged by device tracking issues.
As for environmental robustness, with the support of efficient AEC algorithm, E4 can adapt to more complex home light conditions. Turning lights on and off, sunny and cloudy days will not limit the positioning system. The
Dapeng VR team tested the dynamic positioning accuracy of the helmet in the optitrack laboratory environment (simulating real user usage scenarios). Using the 6DoF data output by optitrack as the true value, the displacement and angular deviation between the helmet's 6DoF and the optitrack true value were calculated. The final test results reached a millimeter-level high-precision level with an average displacement deviation of 0.0055m and an average angle deviation of 0.328141°.
(actual measurement results in optitrack laboratory environment: the yellow track is the helmet 6DoF, the white track is the optitrack 6DoF)
and Dapeng E4 Hawkeye The Vslam positioning system also performs well in reducing latency. It is based on high frame rate low-latency imu inertial navigation plus 4 wide-angle fisheye cameras to achieve high-precision positioning and tracking. Together with a high-precision prediction algorithm, it can achieve a tracking delay close to 0ms.
(The blue trajectory is the helmet’s 6dof-x-axis motion trajectory (vslam algorithm output), the green trajectory is the helmet’s true 6dof-x-axis motion trajectory; the red trajectory is the helmet’s 6dof-y-axis motion trajectory (vslam algorithm output), and the purple trajectory is the helmet’s true 6dof-y-axis motion trajectory)
followed by the handle, Dapeng VR E4 The 6DoF action controller adopts the infrared light active optical positioning and tracking solution. It uses a distributed computing method and a high-precision tightly coupled fusion algorithm to realize the interaction between the handle and the head display, and complete the 6DoF high-precision positioning and tracking of the handle. The
handle selection adopts an industrial-grade IMU sensor and an anti- electromagnetic interference design, allowing head-hand 6DoF interaction to achieve high accuracy of 0.1s high-speed response recognition, millimeter-level dynamic tracking error, sub-millimeter level static tracking and drift error in general gaming environments.
The most significant results are reflected in VR games such as "Beat Saber" that require high handle positioning accuracy. Many players must have experienced the situation where the "light saber" does not move or moves randomly when the controller is swung, which makes people extremely irritated.
With Dapeng E4, even if the hard difficulty of "Beat Saber" is turned on, you can still "hit wherever you point", allowing players to truly feel the freedom of movement in the virtual reality world.
The collision of virtuality and reality
"I see you." This is a classic line in "Avatar 1". The male protagonist sees the female protagonist in a human state. The collision of virtuality and reality at this moment brings indescribable feelings.
The optimized and upgraded positioning system of Dapeng E4 not only brings a better gaming experience, but is also an innovative optimization and case creation of VR positioning solutions and 6DoF complex scene applications. In the future, it will also provide experience and reference for Dapeng VR series products and even other products in the same category, so that the day when virtuality and reality collide without distance comes earlier.
