vr tour with hmd (head mounted devices) ?

Q&A about the latest versions
Post Reply
User avatar
soulbrother
Posts: 545
Joined: Tue Apr 08, 2008 7:01 pm
Location: München
Contact:

Please help with your experience, as I don´t have a good idea...

The need:
To use a computer with a "head-device"
OR
to use a mobile phone with a google cardboard
OR
any other way?
to show a vr-tour (more than 1 panorama!) on a booth (trade fair) - the hole day long without the need of complex restart and configurations.

What is a handy solution, what is the best solution, what is the most easy solution for the handling, especially the daily start should be easy manageable by the stuff on the booth.
And of course it should be with "local data" on the computer or mobile-device.

For the "simple" case with browser and online (wifi) connection, the cardboard plus any mobile-phone that fits in the cardboard, all is clear to me.
But with local data and possibly with one of the vr-hmd tools that does not use a mobile-phone, I would need your hints and ideas.
many thanks to all!
JSchrader
Posts: 141
Joined: Sat Nov 28, 2015 2:26 pm

Cardboard works with local files in goodreader on iphone -> awful quality (so far only tested 6 yet, don't know about iphone 8 or x).
GearVR would be better but afaik this will not work with just copying pano2vr files to the phone.
Would not recommend Occulus or Vive if you don't need specific 3D environments to run no these from a computer.
For a panotour GearVR will be sufficient, unfortunately so far I only used single stereo panos so no experience with tours.
User avatar
Tony
Posts: 1341
Joined: Mon Feb 15, 2010 6:54 am
Location: Adelaide, South Australia
Contact:

Hi,

What method of delivery you choose is governed by a number of factors such as the type of content you are delivering i.e. Still images / Virtual Tour/ 360 video etc. The next factor would be the environment of your booth. Will users be able to sit on swivel chairs or are you expecting them to stand and turn around? Are they going to be able to move to a relatively private area out of high traffic areas? Putting on a HMD can be an intrusive experience for a number of reasons, especially at a trade show. It may sound funny but head straps can severely mess up your hair and a number of people hesitate to put them on for this reason.

The best result achievable would be a computer with a tethered Head Mounted Device (HMD) such as a Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. However in a trade fair environment where people are constantly moving from one vendor to another it's a bit cumbersome to kit someone out with wires going all over the place.

If you are considering an untethered HMD a point to consider is the device you have avialable to show the tour, will it be an iOS phone or an Android phone?

An untethered HMD such as a Samsung Gear VR or Google Daydream are probably two HMD's you want to review. The issue with the Gear VR is that you need an Android phone, but the viewing experience is very good, and you have to set up some software to disable the Oculus app from running when you plug in the phone and the reponsiveness of the browser isn't as good as the native viewer. On the other hand you could use a service such as InstaVR to build a Gear VR app.

I did a recent project with one of my clients where they did a number of presentations in different cities across Australia and showed a virtual tour composed of 20 still 360˚ panoramas. They loaded the files locally on the iPhone and used the Daydream HMD.

Here's a shot of visitors to the presentation using the Daydream HMD's, notice how viewers prefer to hold them to their faces rather than use the straps!

Google-Cardboard-2.JPG
Google-Cardboard-2.JPG (394.8 KiB) Viewed 1994 times

Tony
Tony Redhead | Panoramic Photographer | mobile: +61438501002 | website: https://tonyredhead.com - https://redsquare.com | Pano2VR Tutorials: https://tonyredhead.com/pano2vr | instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyredhead/
User avatar
soulbrother
Posts: 545
Joined: Tue Apr 08, 2008 7:01 pm
Location: München
Contact:

Thanks Jürgen and Tony for your helpful infos.

May I just ask some more details:

Tony, what iphone did you use?
Was the resolution (pixel on the screen) enough, was it sufficient?

Did you display the tour via Safari?

On the google daydream side, there is no iphone mentioned, did you use this daydream, just as a holder for the iphones?
Are the optical lenses better that the Samsung

Is it more easy to use an iphone with local data, as it is with a android device?

In my momentary case, it is a "simple" vr-tour with 10+ panos and another tour (around 10 panos) with "real 3d" stereo pairs.

Did someone try the ZEISS VR ONE or ZEISS VR ONE Plus? Any experiences and hints?
Post Reply