Reg straps on goggles from upstart that wants to 'democratize' VR

A Silicon Valley startup is hoping to get ahead of the rapidly moving VR market with software that offers what companies have been chasing for the past few years: inside-out tracking.

Eonite Perception has released what it claims is the most-accurate and lowest-latency solution for cameras attached to a VR device, with accuracy to a few millimeters and time delays to less than 20 milliseconds – specs that should equate to a seamless VR experience.

It means that a VR system will be able to work within the physical environment of a user: any chairs, tables or walls can be accurately rendered within the virtual world, breaking down the unusual – and sometimes perilous – disconnect between the real world outside and the virtual world inside the headset.

We tried out the system in a hotel room in downtown San Francisco and it appeared to work largely as advertised – although far from seamlessly.

Currently, the ability to physically move around while your head is engaged in a VR space is achieved by placing sensors around the room that track the user. That approach is more expensive, more complex and less accurate than inside-out tracking however, and has led to all VR manufacturers trying to use cameras on the headset itself to survey the room and feed the information back.

Facebook's Oculus has been trialing a prototype of the Rift headset called Santa Cruz that has inside-out tracking. And the still-to-be-launched Sulon Q hopes that its unique selling point will be its inside-out tracking system (combined with the ability to not be physically tethered to a computer, thanks to a tiny PC mounted on the back of the headset). Microsoft also announced its Evo headset late last year, which should be available at some point in 2017.

Virtual leap

Eonite's Vantage Head Tracker software hopes to leapfrog those efforts by offering multi-platform software that will run on a "tablet-class GPU," according to the company – ie, it won't need a dedicated graphics card.

CEO Youssri Helmy was vague about what the licensing terms would be and how the system would work with other people's hardware, saying only that the company would work with licensees on hardware selection and calibration.

He also claimed the company was working with top-tier VR companies but was currently not at liberty to name them. He hopes to do so later this year, when, he claims, headsets featuring the software will hit the market.

The prototype that we tested out in the hotel room proved promising but was limited. It only had one camera with a limited field of view. As a result, we were advised to test it out in just half the room.

The result was good but buggy. The table in front of us was pretty accurately rendered, although it was not within millimeters of accuracy. And the chair to the left seemed too far away. Turning your head or moving too fast caused the screen to jump, instantly moving chairs and tables several feet from where they were before.

The virtual world mapped out inside the headset was also a little too tidy and did not pick up on several real-world obstacles, which at one point led us to consider whether there was some sleight-of-hand at work and the room's dimensions had been manually inputted rather than calculated from the camera stuck to the front of the HTC Vive we were using.

In short, the demo was too short and too limited for us to make any accurate assessment of its accuracy or viability. But we are cautious about singing its praises, especially given the tendency of companies in their field to exaggerate their capabilities.

Introducing Eonite Vantage Head Tracker from Eonite on Vimeo

Pressure

We asked Helmy why Eonite was officially launching now and he assured us it was because the product was complete and ready to go. We suspect, however, that the heat of competition is pushing things faster than Eonite would like.

With the big annual Games Developer Conference (GDC) in San Francisco just around the corner (Feb 27-Mar 3), at which Sulon is expected to formally launch and many suspect the big names in VR will push new technology – including inside-out tracking systems – Eonite may be faced with a short window of opportunity.

As Helmy points out, the company's software has an enormous array of possible uses beyond VR in future. Home robots, drones, even tablets could all benefit from the ability to swiftly recognize and respond to their external environments.

While car manufacturers are using advanced laser and radar techniques to produce autonomous vehicles and driver-assisted navigation, those systems are far too expensive for most applications (Google's system cost around $7,500). A low-cost and accurate inside-out system would find a lot of possible uses. And Eonite hopes to be the software company behind that next wave of technology.

The company is expected to set up shop at GDC alongside a wealth of other companies keen to make 2017 the year of VR. Although Helmy assures us that Eonite has much of its $5.25m in funding remaining, next month may prove to be the make-or-break moment for this and many other VR startups. ®