Microsoft HoloLens

[SirBenn21]

Imagine the possibilities for flight sims! :jawdrop:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yCpxKn_vyo

No more triple screens for me.

[ejoiner]

Imagine the possibilities for flight sims! :jawdrop:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yCpxKn_vyo

No more triple screens for me.

I am going to buy this the first second it comes out.

[Bjoern]

Imagine the possibilities for flight sims! :jawdrop:

I don't see any.

This thing just superimposes virtual objects over the real environment. Great for real cockpits (think helmet mounted display system), not so great for applications that require entire virtual worlds. For that, you're better off with something like Oculus Rift.

[Daube]

I have the same opinion as Bjoern.
This device from MS will be great for many applications, but I don't think it will be of any help when tryin to fly a simulator. The Occulus Rift will do that.

[Lane Street]

I don't see any.


I have the same opinion as Bjoern.

Come on guys, think out of the box.

With this technology we will be able to flight sim while doing other things, like driving your car. or while working or sitting in church.

Think of the possibilities!!! :dizzy:

cheers,
Lane

[Navy Chief]

What I am imagining is the cost of this gadget, which I am sure will be too much for me. NC

[Daveroo]

what if you wear glasses?....this is why i will never buy a 3D tv or anything like that,,,you just cant wear your glasses and do things like this

[Navy Chief]

what if you wear glasses?....this is why i will never buy a 3D tv or anything like that,,,you just cant wear your glasses and do things like this

Yep, got the same problem.

[roger-wilco-66]

what if you wear glasses?....this is why i will never buy a 3D tv or anything like that,,,you just cant wear your glasses and do things like this

I wear glasses and frequently watch 3d bluerays with the shutter device sitting on top of my normal ones. Never had a problem with that!

Cheers,
Mark

[falcon409]

What I am imagining is the cost of this gadget, which I am sure will be too much for me. NC
Exactly!! The whole time that kid was talking and explaining what this thing will do I could see the dollar signs getting bigger and bigger. It sure won't be "affordable" in the sense that everyone will be running out to get one. As some have already mentioned also, neat little gadget but it doesn't really relate (currently) to flight simulator. It appears that Occulus Rift will.

[n4gix]

Keep in mind also that this device won't work without any game's software being coded for it. It just won't work otherwise. :dizzy:

[DennyA]

There's nothing to prevent Hololens from taking up the entire viewing area, thus acting more like an Oculus Rift.

I'm sure it's a way off before that happens, which is why I have an Oculus DK2 now, but it certainly could be a great sim peripheral some day.

[Bjoern]

Come on guys, think out of the box.

With this technology we will be able to flight sim while doing other things, like driving your car. or while working or sitting in church.

Think of the possibilities!!! :dizzy:

If this was sarcasm: Well played.

If not: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO!

[Lane Street]

If this was sarcasm: Well played.

If not: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO!

Rest assured, it was.

[JimmyRFR]

I personally see amazing possibilities for this, far greater than that of the Oculus Rift, at least where it comes to flight simulators.

First of all, as amazing as it would be for the Oculus Rift to immerse one into complete virtual reality, for flight simulators (and racing simulators, to a lesser degree) the problem becomes utilizing hardware controls. I personally have a pretty decent (but generic) simpit built: A few switch panels, a pair of throttle quadrants, a TPM for use with a bunch of my GA addons, a trim wheel, a flaps lever, a landing gear lever, etc. This is in addition to the yoke or the joystick being used as appropriate. I have experimented with using a touch screen for radios and such, but nothing beats hardware controls, since they are completely usable within your peripheral vision. For this reason, I can't ever see using the Oculus Rift, since it would block out my vision of such hardware. I've heard you can 'peek' underneath it, but that does not help for controls that aren't within that limited view.

However, technology such as the Hololens opens up some amazing possibilities. It could be used in concert with hardware controls, since you could project the static parts of a cockpit around the switches, panels, etc that you already have. You could project the whole dash of a plane in front of you, complete with gauges, aligned with your existing yoke. You could project the sides, or the roof of the cockpit. Ideally, you could do without the display of the VC inside the simulator, and just use the sim for an external view, shown on screens, monitors, projection screens, etc.

There's people that invest so much time and energy into replicating actual cockpits, right up to acquiring a portion of fuselage, or the whole front shell of a helicopter. This type of technology could, at best, completely replace that, or at least supplement it considerably.

Better yet, since we already have the capability of communicating with the simulator via simconnect, we wouldn't actually need a specially modified version. The sim could run as normal, displayed on your monitors as normal. The Hololens style technology could simply run a separate program, even on a separate PC, to display a static cockpit around you, optionally communicating with simconnect to display dynamic gauges or other feedback. In the demo videos I've seen it shows the projection of 3D models. It seems to me, that's exactly what we'd need to display parts of a cockpit.

Sorry for the long post, but I'm extremely excited by the possibility of this technology being introduced. If the quality of the projected display is good enough, and the price is affordable, I'll be certainly buying and experimenting with it!

[Naruto-kun]

JimmyRFR, google Technical Illusions castAR. That might suit your purposes a lil better.

[Naismith]

Rant mode engaged.
Price is not an issue these days for many, have you seen the prices for some of these fancy graphics cards! AND some of them have 3 or 4 cards crammed into their machines. To play GAMES for heavens sake.
Rant mode disengaged.
:biggrin-new:

[JimmyRFR]

JimmyRFR, google Technical Illusions castAR. That might suit your purposes a lil better.

Yep, I was kinda aware of CastAR aleady, having heard about their Kickstarter campaign back a long time ago.

From what I understand though, the two projects are remarkably similar. The difference being mainly that the point cloud technology that MS uses for their Kinect sensors gives them a huge upper hand in augmented reality. And the part that really has me excited is that with their existing resources, MS might have a greater chance of seeing this through to a functional consumer device.

There's a lot of 'if's' of course. It could be way overhyped, which is quite likely, and it could cost far too much to be a consumer item. Or it might simply be better suited to playing Minecraft on a tabletop...

I guess what I'm excited about is the idea of augmented reality for the possibilities inherent in our hobby. Full virtual reality is cool if you never have to let go of the controller, but AR is likely far more useful to us, and likely far easier (should it ever get in the hands of consumers) to backwards implement as a stand alone complement to an existing flight sim.

Whoever is the first to develop it and bring it to market, I'm behind it 100%, regardless. :)

[Daube]

First of all, as amazing as it would be for the Oculus Rift to immerse one into complete virtual reality, for flight simulators (and racing simulators, to a lesser degree) the problem becomes utilizing hardware controls. I personally have a pretty decent (but generic) simpit built: A few switch panels, a pair of throttle quadrants, a TPM for use with a bunch of my GA addons, a trim wheel, a flaps lever, a landing gear lever, etc. This is in addition to the yoke or the joystick being used as appropriate. I have experimented with using a touch screen for radios and such, but nothing beats hardware controls, since they are completely usable within your peripheral vision. For this reason, I can't ever see using the Oculus Rift, since it would block out my vision of such hardware. I've heard you can 'peek' underneath it, but that does not help for controls that aren't within that limited view.

...

There's people that invest so much time and energy into replicating actual cockpits, right up to acquiring a portion of fuselage, or the whole front shell of a helicopter. This type of technology could, at best, completely replace that, or at least supplement it considerably.


That's the whole point: the Occulus Rift is made for those who don't want any hardware at all. The Occulus Rift is made to provide a complete alternative to a semi-solid cockpit.

Your gear lever is surely nice, but mot planes have different levers, located in different places.
Sure, a full hardware cockpit of a liner is really cool. I could use one in a professional sim, it was an A320. It was a very nice experience. But what if I want to fly a Cessna ? And what if I want to fly a Tomcat ? When flying a Tomcat, hardware switches from a Cessna sitting on my desktop are useless. I want to see the inside of a Tomcat, not the instruments of a Cessna or a Boeing or an Airbus or whatever. Same goes with a C152 or a Robin or any other plane.

In fact, these discussions can be compared to the "virtual cockpit vs 2D panels" old threads back when FS9 started having decent VCs. But this time, the immersion offered by the Occulus Rift in a good VC will be unbeatable. And it will be for ANY aircraft which has a good VC. The 3D vision provided by the Occulus Rift can't be compared to any hardware switches.

Sure, it won't be easy to click on those switches. But it won't be more difficult than clicking on the VC displayed on the screen. In fact, it will be way simpler.

[JimmyRFR]

That's the whole point: the Occulus Rift is made for those who don't want any hardware at all. The Occulus Rift is made to provide a complete alternative to a semi-solid cockpit.

Your gear lever is surely nice, but mot planes have different levers, located in different places.
Sure, a full hardware cockpit of a liner is really cool. I could use one in a professional sim, it was an A320. It was a very nice experience. But what if I want to fly a Cessna ? And what if I want to fly a Tomcat ? When flying a Tomcat, hardware switches from a Cessna sitting on my desktop are useless. I want to see the inside of a Tomcat, not the instruments of a Cessna or a Boeing or an Airbus or whatever. Same goes with a C152 or a Robin or any other plane.

In fact, these discussions can be compared to the "virtual cockpit vs 2D panels" old threads back when FS9 started having decent VCs. But this time, the immersion offered by the Occulus Rift in a good VC will be unbeatable. And it will be for ANY aircraft which has a good VC. The 3D vision provided by the Occulus Rift can't be compared to any hardware switches.

Sure, it won't be easy to click on those switches. But it won't be more difficult than clicking on the VC displayed on the screen. In fact, it will be way simpler.

Choice is great. :) Each to their own!

I far prefer a tactile switch or lever, even if it's not in the perfect spot, over absolutely anything else. Complete VR like the Oculus Rift gives you the full 360 immersion, but takes away the possibility of using any additional hardware without breaking that immersion. AR solutions, like this Hololens, or the CastAR version, could let you utilize existing hardware for the tactile part, while letting you build a represetnation of a VC around it. And of course, you could do the same thing regardless of whether you were wanting to fly a Tomcat, or a Cessna.

For example, I built myself a custom overhead switch panel for the 206. I even have rough hardware that holds it in approximately the right spot. It'd be neat if I could still see and touch those switches, but when I look there, my custom switch panel is part of the roof of the helicopter.

The end result is the same; I want to see a better representation of the VC than my generic simpit, but I want to be able to operate switches as well.

[Daube]

I understand. You want some kind "hybrid" solution.
Still, the hardware switches will limit your choices. You made a hardware 206 overhead panel, and yes it would be absolutely great if the Hololens could somehow display the virtual overhead on top of your harware. But what if you want to fly another copter with a different overhead panel ?

[JimmyRFR]

But what if you want to fly another copter with a different overhead panel ?

Well, with AR, I'd still be able to display a different panel if I so wanted, but just like full VR, there'd be no tangible switch or control to access.

Essentially, the way I'm thinking about it, AR could be used the same as VR, in that you get to see a full 3D representation of the cockpit. The difference is that with AR, you can have either have gaps, areas where you can see past the AR, or else you have AR elements placed behind your actual hardware.

A perfect example would be a hardware yoke in a dash panel. With VR, you don't see your yoke at all, you'd see the digital representation of the yoke in your goggles, along with the instrumentation on the panel behind the yoke. With AR, you'd see your hardware yoke handle and shaft protruding out of a digital representation of a panel.

Augmented reality would ideally let you merge the two, digital and tangible, in ways that are really only limited by your imagination.

Powerful enough AR would ideally let you create a whole VR world (in flight sim talk, both inside and outside the VC), while letting you see and keep hardware controls such as a yoke.

Note that I'm getting far, far ahead of even the best hype of the Hololens. :)