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- Hacker News
- This can be done with any modern VR headset but pretty cool nonetheless. cheersby j_aime
- Seeing the title and the upvotes, I thought the author just discovered a use case that justifies the ~~$3500~~ $3700 price tag.
To say I am disappointed is an understatement.
by fg137 - This can be done with the Google Cardboard :|by iLoveOncall
- I was expecting an app that works like the VR version of a laser indoor measuring tool. Where you hold a piece of wooden board and the VR tells you where it should go and then another person wearing a VR helmet attaches it to a post, also at sub-mm precision. Etc.by amelius
- reading some of the comments i was expecting something really high end and polished, but yeah, this is something you could with a headset 1/10th the costby oh_no
- This is an absolutely standard feature of any VR headset that has ever been released in the history of VR headsets. Make a 3D world, walk through it. What am I missing?by stonedivot
- "Ah yes, how hard could it be?", he confidently asks.
> What am I missing?
So much.
> This is an absolutely standard feature of any VR headset that has ever been released in the history of VR headsets
The article is describing "room scale positioning". The first consumer available headset to offer this was released in 2016.
It may feel like it's been around forever if you're not familiar with the space except as a consoomer, but exploring a 3d space at room scale has only recently come into the realm of possibility for consumer grade headsets. For much of the 80s and 90s (and 00s), it was head tracking only. Real time positioning and moving around required positioning hardware that was a magnitude more expensive - and pretty much always had very specific space limitations. Sure, it existed to some degree, but it was such inexpensive addition that using an expensive and complicated treadmill was often considered the economical choice.
In fact, I don't think there was even a "professional" solution that offered room scale positioning before the vive. Previously, they all had specific limitations like a 4 x 4 foot area or were massive tech demos that existed in a quantity of one in a university basement somewhere, running a very tailored demo, and they certainly weren't feasible in the 90s.
> Make a 3D world, walk through it.
First of all, how do you map the room? Do you set up lighthouses? Low latency positioning? To do what is in the article, you need a large space and the ability to map into it. Only recently, has "inside out" tracking become feasible. Previous generations didn't have it, and it's almost a guaranteed requirement for any large scale deployment of VR - for example, exploring multiple rooms.
Second, how do you create the "3d world"? It may seem simple, but VR headsets require more than double the graphical computation, and that means that any geometry and graphics you inert of the world needs to be within the compute budget of the headset solution. The fact that the person in the article was able to just export a USDC directly out of fusion and have it render without hitting the compute budget limit is amazing and really speaks to the graphical power of the AVP.
Lastly, stitching, the 3-D solution and compositing, and the real world is a very difficult problem. Again, it may feel like we've had the technology, but really we haven't had the high speed camera solutions in small packages, and the compute power to process all of that in anything approaching a consumer solution. To do what AVP is doing with the USDZ files, composing them into the real world, and even applying lighting information, previously would have required a fleet of large and expensive machines. And that doesn't even include transparency and applying real-world attributes of lighting and reflection onto the USDZ file, a a task that's hard to parallelize.
by parl_match - When I did this for a home remodel, the big difference was that it was AR and not just VR. Being able to experience where the virtual changes line up with the real world makes a huge difference.by leothecool
- One application is a toy. The other is catching mistakes before applying hundreds of thousands of dollars.by brikym
- Yep, we did hackathons with old Oculus Rift DK1 around this concept over 15 years ago or so.by xandrius
- You’re missing the difference between a feature and an application of that feature.
- It seems like everything here can also be done with any iPhone using ARKit. Obviously the headset is better, but not $3500 better than just looking through your phone.
Just thought I’d raise this since it weirdly isn’t mentioned in the article.
I used a similar technique the last time I moved - scan the apartment using the iPhone, then I had a 3D model for measuring and planning out the space before/during the move. It’s a big help when planning out furniture etc.
And I scanned my old place before leaving so I can virtually step into it any time I want. iPhone via finder/preview handles showing 3D models in AR out of the box.
by nxc18 - Maybe not $3500 better, but likely $300 better (price of a Quest).by outworlder
- Or a used meta quest 2 which is like $100.by Grombobulous
- Arkit is the first thing i thought of and has way way more of an adressable market.by nekooooo
- If you're using it for hobby projects and you're budget constrained yeah.
If you're making a sales pitch the $3500 is an investment in raising sales.
by waterTanuki - Looking through your phone at an AR object is not anywhere close to what VR offers. Maybe with a Google Cardboard / Google Daydream type experience. But not holding the phone out in front of you.
Obviously $3500 is not nothing for most people, but neither is building a house in this economy. I think the skillset of leveraging the provided code here and working with 3D models is gonna be a bigger barrier to entry than the cost of a Vision Pro.
by hbn - How did you actually end up doing it, like the full pipeline ? For example what app did you use to scan your apartment and orocesss it into a 3d model (which kind?) and then how do you actually do the planning (like which tools/software to plan your new space?)
And I ask for details because I have attempted something similar but wasn’t getting the best results. I was using ‘3d scanner app’ (which was good but was sold and is not recommended now), and that created pretty decent models, but like, they were still I think based on lidar and not super precise. I also wasn’t sure how to reconcile my actual floor plan with that 3d model the right way - like if the 3d model got some error built-up, the wall which I know to be 100 inches has to be that, and not 101 or 99, since for furniture planing an inch definitely matters. So I kind of got stuck here on how to actually generate some useful and as correct dimensionally as possible 3d model, into which I can later put furniture 3d models into. Thanks for any info!
by radicality - Ive used various AR apps to see how products fit in physical spaces--like Ikea used to offer. I've also worked on VR projects for car interiors. With VR you really do get a sense of scale and space that you're still guessing at with AR on a phone. I really liked when people removed the VR headset they were surprised to be back in a small room.
Like you mentioned, Ive wanted to scan some spaces to remember them in the future. Last time I looked, those apps werent very easy to find or easy to use.
by pfranz - There are apps for displaying RevIt models on the Apple Vision Pro, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, iPhone ARKit, and Android AR [1], so if you are working with an architect it is worth asking them if they can provide in-progress models as you iterate to avoid having to reproduce them yourself.
[1] https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdc...
by pavon - Good time to mention TwinMotion - a real-time archviz software from Epic, built on top of Unreal Engine. Free for personal and small-scale commercial use.
Basically, you do the geometry modelling in Sketchup, Blender or what have you, import that into TM, texture it, place lights and then walk around Doom style. VR headsets are supported natively. There is also a decent (and very easy to use) support for "scenarios", so you can open/close doors, turn on/off lights, etc.
Highly recommended.
PS. There is a free desktop version of Sketchup Make 2017. Got everything one needs for a single-person setup. There is a copy on the Internet Archive.
by abcd_f - Here's a low-voltage wiring installer that wrote his own Vision Pro app to help visualize in-wall studs to make it easer to run wiring:
https://old.reddit.com/r/Ubiquiti/comments/1ut1atj/how_i_ret...
https://old.reddit.com/r/VisionPro/comments/1tq34lj/created_...
Submitted previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48867417
by js2 - I hired him last year to run Ethernet cable in my existing house and he did a great job (the original homebuilder did not make it easy on him!) At the time he was placing random icons so they'd protrude onto the next floor. I guess he got some development done to use color-coded bars instead, and it's much better looking/accurate.
He's in the Charlotte NC area.
by chiph - I scanned my local climbing gym and have climbing videos mapped onto the wall
https://kmcheung12.github.io/climb-preview/w/a6ece004
I think 3D application is massively under utilised. There is whole family of interaction the textual web cannot provide
by a_c - I agree it is under utilized but genuinely question if it provides sufficient value to warrant increased utilization.by dieselgate
- This is amazing! I'm guessing this can be used for creating 3D models of outdoor routes if you wore a vision pro on rappel? How accurate do you think it would be for "seeing into" cracks, at least deep enough to pick up the relevant details for gear placements and climbing movements?by pcthrowaway
- That's neat. Once it is built, I think a cooler use is to trace wiring and plumbing through your walls of your existing house. Your revit model may include all of this data, or at least the plan. Things change. :)
Though this is especially helpful for old homes where you have to sort of improvise ethernet wiring.
I normally just use it to consume 4k hdr media though.
It has not lived up to being a utility player device, but so far it is so good at media delivery that is sort of okay.
by bredren - Christian is a brilliant developer, that made simply the best experience for reddit that ever existed; after the ban, and when Apollo was dead, I simply stopped consuming reddit (other than an occasional kagi search that takes me there).
I hope he knows that a lot of iOS users really appreciate his work, (I even convinced one hardcore Android user to get an iPhone just for this one app, it was that good).
For that, thank you Christian!
by marcogarces - I recommend protego https://apps.apple.com/dk/app/protego-for-reddit/id673795972...by MrJagil
- I also quit once Apollo was done in. Thankful to him for improving the Reddit experience, and for helping me leave completely.by jayelem