The Quest 3 VR headset is an impressive piece of hardware. It is also not open; not in the way most of us understand the word. One consequence of this is the inability in general for developers or users to directly access the feed of the two color cameras on the front of the headset. However, [Hugh Hou] shares a method of doing exactly this to capture 3D video on the Quest 3 headset for later playback on different devices.
There are a few steps to the process and it involves enabling developer mode on the hardware then using ADB (Android Debug Bridge) commands to enable the necessary functionality, but it’s nothing the average curious hacker can’t handle. The directions are written out in the video’s description, along with a few handy links. (The video is embedded below just under the page break, but view it on YouTube to access the description and all the info in it.)
He also provides some excellent guidance on practical things like how to capture stable shots, editing the videos, and injecting the necessary metadata for optimal playback on different platforms, including hassle-free uploading to a service like YouTube. [Hugh] is no stranger to this kind of video and camera handling and really knows his stuff, and it’s great to see someone provide detailed instructions.
This kind of 3D video comes down to recording two different views, one for each eye. There’s another way to approach 3D video, however: light fields are also within reach of enterprising hackers, and while they need more hardware they yield far more compelling results.
Irrelevant since Meta bought it. Too bad, with all the work of good people like Carmack.
Meta bought it in 2014, before Oculus even made the quest series and only made the DK1 headset. The Quest series is a great product and still the best VR headset series value wise. I don’t like Meta either, but Oculus makes good products and the headsets still work with SteamVr. Unless Oculus starts doing the whole “Walled garden” or other shenanigans Apple does I personally don’t see a good reason to not get their headsets.
I think I’d still far rather avoid them, even though I mostly agree the Oculus stuff seems good for the price. I’d rather get a previous generation from pretty much anybody else for a similar price so I can stay safely at arms length from anything Meta touches.
In many ways even the first generations of PCVR are better than the latest generations of Oculus as inside out vs outside in tracking does make a big difference for some VR experience, and all the stuff designed to work with the HTC/SteamVR Lighthouse system should in theory be very interoperable so you can continually fine-tune your setup without buying a full standalone package as your understanding of what you want out of VR and the stuff available changes.
But VR is still so rapidly developing and what you want to do with it really changes which of the current offerings would be best for you anyway.
The only reason it is the best value wise, is because it is heavily subsidized by Meta as long as the market is still expanding. We know they can afford to waste money on VR… When VR really becomes more than a gadget, and only then there will be enshitification (which begun with the mandotary FB accounts).
Respectfully disagree. The Rift S was more compelling hardware wise. It needed a less powerful PC for PC VR. Sadly they picked a proprietary optical cable and it was too fragile. The hardware is now basically free (30-80 for a headset and/or controllers). Just need to reverse engineer that displayport connection and break it down into a standard displayport, power and USB cords.
Hating Meta is actually a good reason to buy a Quest 3, since Meta loses huge amounts of money making these and selling them. Meta thinks AR/VR will be the next great platform. It won’t. Not in anything resembling it’s current form (and Apple’s will do no better). It’s a fun device though and an outstanding value.
I suspect you may be wrong on AR/VR – the leaps and bounds made since the early days of the HTC Vive in image quality potential (at least reportedly as I’ve only got experience of the Vive) and the growing list of software that supports VR or is only for VR means I can see it being well in the mix as part of the way people interact in the same way facebook, twitter, (etc) have been.
The hardware is still a bit too expensive and probably too bulky really. But it is getting rather close, and as many peoples living spaces continue to shrink that VR headset that lets you experience that home cinema with your buddies etc seems likely to really work, and anything that gets you out of your small box (even if you don’t actually leave physically).
They ALL track you (I wish there was some present day tech that didn’t) and they all want you to use a payment system that forces you to ID yourself to use it so you can’t even wall it off easily.
Seriously the only way these days is using old tech or making things yourself from scratch, both hardware and software.
And there are zero forces that try to change things, regardless of there being quite a few million of people who abolutely hate all that crap. And I think the nature of people who go into politics means there won’t be any support arriving any time soon.
On a less heavy note: That room with the dog looks so much more roomy in 3D.
Shed a tear for me. Due to an auto accident my levator scapulae muscle is permanently damaged, so no VR for me. I would have kept my Quest/Rift S, sadly there was no accessibility mode for laying down and operating the device. Booo. Would be a perfect use case to let disabled people experience VR and do things they otherwise might not be able to. (Just bind look to a stick, how hard is that?)
Would a neck brace type idea supporting the weight on your shoulders or even waist not have allowed you to continue to use it by taking the weight off your head and so damaged neck muscle? (Obviously I don’t know how bad your injury is)
I expect you can ‘trick’ a PC VR headset into working with the axis rotated, though as it stands I’m not sure how well it would work as it seems to me every VR program has some expectation of more movement than you would have (though maybe it would really work well in many things as so many VR programs are suitable for a sitting setup). Not something I’ve looked into so no idea how tricky it would be to add to the VR stack or if anybody has made it easy to do so yet. I shall have to add it to my list of interesting ideas to look up around VR.
As a follow up I’ve done only a little bit of looking but I can’t find a universally implemented method for doing laying down VR, though it should be very possible to do so within the OpenXR framework, and seems like there are more than a few toolkits that offer the feature (SteamVR has also just transitioned to OpenXR rather than OpenVR – so the more default PCVR experience should be able to use them – though I’ve not looked at it yet).
That said a pretty large number of VR programs I’ve tried that are sit-down rather than room scale have a reset default view that doesn’t care if that view is pointed at the ceiling (however some don’t do this – one for instance is clearly projecting the ‘default’ view against a cone oriented with gravity so if you lay down you just set your height to an effective zero)
Great news, at least the Oculus Quest and HTC VIVe has lying down mode under accessibility settings. I think it is a feature all of them offer.
https://www.reddit.com/r/OculusQuest/comments/12v13ua/lying_down_mode/
https://www.vive.com/us/support/flow/category_howto/cant-see-screen-while-lying-down.html
FUCK it to hell stupid failing comment system. What the hell did you people do to it? Now it only works in chrome-based crap and even there it fails 25% of the time destroying your comment.
And then there is all the censoring on top of it, it’s all a grand thing and surely makes everybody want to shop at Supplyframe or its parent Siemens.