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.