The OSVR Software Stack at CES

When Razer and Sensics announced OSVR at this month's Consumer Electronics Show, most of the attention was focused on the OSVR HDK - the $200 open-source goggle. However, OSVR open-source software platform is at least as important as the HDK. In this post, we'll explore some of the inner working of the OSVR software platform in the context of the CES demos.

OSVR Architecture

By way of introduction, the OSVR software platform provides an easy and standardized way to discover, configure and operate hundreds of devices: VR goggles, position trackers, depth cameras, game controllers and more. OSVR supports multiple operating systems, plugs into leading game engines and is freely available under a permissive Apache 2.0 license. 

The full OSVR architecture is shown in the figure to the right and is described in greater detail in this technical white paper

Of course not all of these blocks were required for the CES demos. The demos used the OSVR HDK (Hacker Developer Kit - the open-source goggles), and some combination of the Razer Hydra, the Leap Motion Controller and the Nod Ring. Some of the OSVR HDKs were equipped with its built-in tracker (Bosch BNO070) and others were equipped with the YEI 3-Space Sensor. Various software demos were written, some using Unity and some using the Unreal Engine.

CES demo architecture

The block diagram of some of the CES demos is shown on the right. Similar diagrams could show the usage of the Leap Motion or Nod device. All demos were running on a Windows platform though Linux and Android ports of OSVR also exist.

OSVR has a client/server architecture. The server connects to the hardware devices and performs the analysis if required. The client uses this information. In the diagram to the right, the Unity and Unreal engines are clients, through an OSVR Unity plugin and an OSVR Unreal plugin. Everything else is the OSVR server.

Often, the client and the server would reside on the same machine, but there are also some additional possibilities including:

• Client on one machine, server on another. For instance, you might have the client running on a mobile phone while the server would be a PC that has more processing power and better connectivity to the various peripherals
• Multiple clients connecting to one server on the same machine. For instance, OSVR includes a graphical utility called "Tracker Viewer" that show the orientation and position of the various tracked devices and has proven to be a useful debug tool. TrackerViewer is an OSVR client and it can run concurrently with other applications such as the demos, connecting to the OSVR server.
• One machine running client and server, a second machine running a client. This can create a 'shadow' experience on a remote machine.
• One client connecting to multiple servers. This is useful in some high-end situations where OSVR applications wish to connect to devices (such as ART SmartTrack) that embed a server.

The 'device plugins' layer of OSVR connected in the demos to the various hardware devices and provided an abstract interface to the higher layers, so that the application does not care - for instance - whether the Bosch or YEI trackers are used. This proved to be useful during the show as our booth had a sofa used for demos and one of the trackers did not like the metal rails of the sofa. Swapping in the other tracker was extremely simple. More importantly, the same application can work across multiple trackers without change. OSVR supports for the Oculus DK2 orientation and position trackers which is helpful for those that wish to write cross-platform applications or for those that wish to debug their OSVR code using an HMD they already own.

An interesting software component on the OSVR stack at CES was the "1 euro filter" that is part of the analysis layer. The analysis layer serves to perform post-processing or high-level analysis on data that comes from the lower layer. In this case, the 1 euro filter is a low-pass filter that can be used to smooth and improve data coming from the Razer Hydra positional information.

One feature of OSVR that allows this to happen is the "path tree". Similar to a URL or file system path, the path tree is how all the sensing and rendering data is made available. Aliases are configured in the server to essentially redirect from a semantic path (a path with a meaningful name) all the way back to the system-specific hardware details. For instance:

• Position of the left hand: /me/hands/left/position
• Orientation of the left hand: /me/hands/left/orientation
• All resources associated with the left hand: /me/hands/left
• Position of the “0” controller of the Hydra: /razer/hydra/position/0
• Output of the first smoothing filter: /analysis/smooth_filter/0

OSVR subsequently allows defining the connection between the various components. In our specific example, /razer/hydra/pos/0 feeds into /analysis/smooth_filter/0 (1 euro filter) which feeds into /hands/left .

This allows to re-route information or insert or remove software components as necessary. For instance, if the 1-euro filter is not desired, simply map /razer/hydra/pos/0 into /hands/left. If a new filter is available, insert it back.

With each of the above software components, comes a JSON file, which is a human- and machine-readable descriptor file. The JSON file could provide device-specific information (for instance, for an HMD it would indicate what is the resolution, field of view and distortion correction coefficients). For a software component, it could define the semantic path of the inputs and outputs which can help in determining available information routes or facilitate auto-routing. Over time, the JSON descriptor could grow to include other parameters such as device-specific calibration data and so forth.

The CES demos used only a small portion of the OSVR components, but even so, the architecture proved to be useful for both development and ongoing operation. The OSVR community led by Sensics and Razer, continues to add and demonstrate components to OSVR. Whether it's a "locomotion device" (to support products from Virtuix and Cyberith), "eye tracking" or others, the capabilities of OSVR continue to grow very nicely.

The post "The OSVR Software Stack at CES" first appeared on the VRguy's blog:www.vrguy.net

How Things Work: the Dual-Element Optics of the OSVR HDK

When the OSVR HDK was unveiled last week, one aspect that received a lot of positive reviews was the quality of the optics - clear to the edges, no pre-distortion required. Since the Open-Source Virtual Reality project is indeed open-source, and its Hacker Development Kit will have the full production file available to download in a couple of weeks, I can talk openly about how Sensics designed it for those that are interested.

What's all the fuss about? Take a look at this comparison photo:

Test pattern photographed using an iPhone 4 camera through a dual-element design (left) and single-element design (right)

I took these photos a few months ago when we received the first batch of HDK optics. I found a test pattern on the Internet and displayed it on a 5.5" display, much like the one inside the HDK. I then used an iPhone 4 camera to take both photos. The left photo shows the test image through the HDK dual-element optics. The right photo shows the same test image through a popular single-element eyepiece. I was trying to get the best image in both cases, Is this a scientifically precise comparison? Probably not, but it's quite telling as is.

As you can see, the test pattern is in nice focus at the center of both the left and right photos. However, as you look towards the edges of the photo, the image remains in focus on the dual-element photo but is blurry in the single-element photo. Compare the "gmail" header on the left, quite readable, with the "gmail" header on the right, quite blurry.

You can also see that colors also break up on the right image. You start seeing the separation between red, green and blue. The colors stay intact on the left image. Last, if you look at the three bands of test pattern (right half of left image), you can see that they remain pretty much straight, whereas the same bands on the right image appear curvy.

In short, we are seeing a blurry image, chromatic aberration and geometrical distortion in the single-element design and not so much on the dual-element one.

Is the dual-element design in the HDK perfect? The best Sensics has ever done? The design to beat all designs from here on? Of course not! It's just a good design and solid engineering. Let's look at what makes it better in some aspects than the single-element design.

When we start an optical design project, we look at the requirements. How much field of view are we looking for? What is the screen size we are trying to image? What are the materials we are allowed to use (e.g. plastic? glass?) How much is it allowed to weigh? What are our cost constraints? How much eye relief (distance from cornea to first optical element) do we want? What is the desired eye box (how much the eye can move from the optimal location without significantly losing image quality)? Are we allowing aspheric optics? How wide or deep do we allow the optics to be? and so on...

All of these are constraints and every design has them. But the constraints are different from design to design, much like some cars are built for gas mileage and others are built for super-quick acceleration. That's why there is no single design that is good for every optical problem.

Usually, optics for HMDs have lots of constraints. You typically don't want to make them from glass because glass is heavier than plastic. You have limits on the lens diameter and size because you want to use them in a binocular setting. You don't want them to cost too much because you are aiming at some price target. When you give these constraints to the designer - after he or she finishes pulling their hair out - the design starts.

An optical lens has two sides. The exact curvature of each side can be different. If you have two lenses, you have four surfaces to work with. If you have 5 lenses, you have 10 surfaces to work with. More surfaces mean more degrees of freedom and more degrees of freedom mean that you can meet more of the constraints. So, having more optical elements usually means you can product a better image. In our case better meant less distortion, more focus, less color aberration.

It's almost like curve fitting: trying to fit a polynomial (e.g. y= a + b*x + c*x^2 + d*x^3 + ...) to set of (x,y) points. The more parameters you are allowed to use, the better your fit will be. If your curve is only "y = a", you'd often be in trouble. If you can use "y= a + b*x", you'll have a better fit and if you can use "y= a + b*x + c*x^2" you'll do even better.

So, we decided that a single-element design did not give us a good-enough answer to our constraints and decided to add a second element and give our designers additional degrees of freedom.

Here is what the design looks like

The screen is on the right side. The eye pupil is on the left side. The two lenses are in between: a 32-mm diameter lens closer to the eye and a 43mm diameter lens close to the screen. Note the interesting left-side surface of the bigger lens. It is made this way to optimize the image quality.

Here is what this looks in 3D:

Both lenses are made from optical-grade plastic. The smaller lens is from a material called Zeonex F52R and the larger one is from Polystyrene . There are hundreds of types of optical-grade glass but just a handful of plastics, but plastics are lighter and sometimes cheaper to use. One more constraint to worry about.

Why doesn't everyone use dual-element design? Because others might be focused on different constraints. For instance, dual elements roughly cost twice as much to make as a single element. Dual elements are heavier than a single element. Dual element eyepieces do a better job of controlling color and geometric distortion, but one could correct for color and geometric distortion with the GPU (though I don't know how one can correct for blurriness with the GPU). So, when we designed the OSVR HDK we were focused on some constraints and that's why we chose two elements.

Why not three or four or even five elements? Same story. We don't want it to cost too much. We don't want the optical path to be longer. We want to keep the weight down. Is someone going to soon write a blog post on their 7-element design? Maybe so. I can't wait to read it!


The post "How Things Work: the Dual-Element Optics of the OSVR HDK" first appeared on the VRguy's blog: www.vrguy.net

For additional VR tutorials on this blog, click here
Expert interviews and tutorials can also be found on the Sensics Insight page here

Open-Source Virtual Reality - a week after CES 2015

It's been a week since Sensics and Razer announced OSVR, the open-source virtual reality initiative at CES 2015 (see press release and supporting companies here). I thought it would be good to share some more details on what it is and what we have heard at the show and since then.

OSVR has two independent parts, an open-source software, a powerful software platform built for virtual reality devices and an open-source HDK (Hacker Development Kit), a lightweight, high-resolution HMD that will be shipping by June 2015 for $199.

The OSVR software platform is designed to encourage innovation and make it easier, simpler and safer to write virtual reality applications. Today, authors of VR applications have to decide what hardware they plan to support and then write to the specific API of these vendors. For instance, if you write to the Facebook/Oculus HMD, you need to use their API; if you want to use an Tobii eye tracker, you need to use their API; and so on. This approach carries a couple of challenges:

• Choosing to support specific hardware limits the number of users that can use the application
• If the API changes, you need to upgrade the application
• If new hardware, such as a new HMD, is released in the future, you will likely need to modify the application to support it

Is this a good approach? Probably not. Take a look at this Wordperfect Printer Driver page for a trip down memory lane. Years ago, you had to download a printer driver for your new printer to work with your older application. Today, do you upgrade your word processor when you get a new printer? Of course not. When you plug a new printer into your computer, the operating system typically recognizes it, fetches the appropriate driver and makes this printer available for all applications

OSVR solves a similar problem for VR. OSVR provides software plugins (think device drivers) for hardware that abstracts each type of hardware - such as head orientation trackers, position trackers, eye trackers - and makes the interface the same for the higher-level application. While the performance of different position trackers may be different, the interface to the application is basically the same. While some eye trackers are better then others, the application usually just needs to know gaze direction, blink detection and perhaps pupil size. By abstracting each type of hardware, the application does not need to change when new hardware becomes available. All it needs is a new plugin, the equivalent of a printer driver.

Because the OSVR software is completely free and open-source, one does not have to wait for Razer or Sensics to provide new plugins. Often, the hardware vendor will provide these plugins, but someone from the community can also write such driver and make it available to others. Just look at how many drivers were written for VRPN, a popular open source package focused on trackers. 

Even at CES, we were demonstrating the OSVR HDK with two different trackers. We could disconnect a unit and connect another one with a different type of tracker and the application would not care. We had VR demos running on top of Unity Pro and on top of Unreal Engine. We had OSVR running underneath Unity and Unreal and we had various plugins powering OSVR.

Of course, OSVR plugins are not limited to hardware plugins. We also have a class of plugins that we call 'analysis plugins' which turn data into better information. For instance, at CES we had units with the Razer Hydra controller. Information from the Hydra was then fed into an "analysis plugin" which implemented the "1-euro filter", a data smoothing algorithm. This could be added or removed at will. If you have a better smoothing filter, you can plug in instead of the 1-euro filter. 

Similarly, you could think about plugins that do gesture analysis, face recognition, eye tracking and much more. Not only that, but you might have multiple gesture engines or multiple trackers or multiple eye tracking algorithms. Select the best for your application, just like you select the best email application or photo enhancement app on the Google Play Store.

OSVR software runs on Windows, Linux and Android and I am sure it will be ported to additional environments as well as improved and enhanced.

The OSVR HDK (Hacker Development Kit) is also open-source. In a few weeks, you can go to osvr.com and download the schematics, bill of material, all the source code, the production files for the optics and so forth. You are allows to make these goggles, change them or incorporate elements in your own design. You think the goggles are cool but you have a better screen? Integrate it. Are you an optical expert and can make better optics than our dual-element, low-distortion eyepiece? Go for it! Want to change the front panel? Revise the head strap? Knock yourself out.

Of course, you can also buy a complete assembled unit from Razer ($199, shipping by June) and hack it from there. It is designed for hacking. We put USB3 ports on it, a powerful FPGA that allows changing the video processing and many features that encourage experimentation and improvement.

Why are people excited about this?

OSVR has received several 'best of CES' awards (thank you Popular Science, Tom's Hardware and others) but even more important, our inbox has been flooded with partnership requests whether from industry or academia. People love this concept. They love the freedom to choose. They love the freedom to innovate.

With OSVR, you can showcase your particular VR expertise without having the build a complete HMD to show it. With OSVR, you have a bigger market:

• If you develop an application (e.g. a game) on OSVR, you have access to a wide range of hardware
• If you are a hardware developer, by creating an OSVR plugin you can access all OSVR application. You don't have to go directly to the application developer to ask to support your hardware, just like a printer manufacturer does not have to ask Adobe to support a new printer in Photoshop.
• If you have a unique algorithm, you can test and showcase it with OSVR

At the end of the day, I love that we are tapping into the power of the community Think about it - if you were creating an encyclopedia today, would you prefer the curated model of Encyclopedia Britannica or the community model of Wikipedia where everyone can contribute their own expertise?

Is OSVR perfect? Of course not. Are there many plugins that still need to be written? Naturally, But the open-source approach allows this to happen quickly and reflect the preferences of the community.