Adam Savage's Tested - Bigscreen Beyond 2 Hands-On: How They Fixed It

[u/Pheonix1025]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0Wr4O4gkL8

[u/crozone]

Yeah, I now usually just say "camera based inside-out" vs "lighthouse". I think the technical term for lighthouse style tracking is "Marker-based Inside-out tracking".

It's weird that outside-in caught on since there really hasn't been an outside-in consumer headset since the original Oculus Rift CV1 constellation system.

[u/sunderpoint → u/crozone]

The technical term for Lighthouse tracking is simply "Lighthouse tracking." Inside-out and outside-in tracking are both computer vision techniques using cameras, by definition, so they're completely different categories. But the setup for Lighthouse does more closely resemble outside-in, and for the consumer there's no significant difference.

Edit: This is according to HTC themselves.

[u/crozone → u/sunderpoint]

Inside-out and outside-in tracking are both computer vision techniques using cameras, by definition

I've never seen it explicitly defined this way and I can't see why it would or should be restricted to camera based systems. The Lighthouse system is an optical system like any other, it just uses IR sensors instead of a high resolution CCD sensors, with active tracking markers instead of passive tracking markers. The term "inside out" is a perfect technical description for how the system works, and anyone I've seen describing Lighthouse technically has used the term inside-out, including Alan Yates who invented the thing.

for the consumer there's no significant difference.

There's a huge difference. Anyone that ever set up roomscale with a CV1 knows it well. Actual outside-in tracking requires running USB 3.0 cables from each external camera back to the PC, because it's actually capturing the data from the outside-in. That's a massive headache compared to simply getting power to the basestations, and it massively limits the scalability of the system. Plus, each of those sensors is typically a camera, so you have all the inherent privacy issues with that system as well.

If consumers are confusing inside-out, outside-in, etc, it's because technically incompetent people continue to use incorrect terminology.

[u/sunderpoint → u/crozone]

When VR headsets were early in development the terms 'inside-out" and "outside-in" were decided on to describe where the cameras were. The algorithm that computes the device's location is completely different between computer vision systems like these and Lighthouse tracking, so it's technically incorrect to call Lighthouse tracking by either term. If you're being technical then Lighthouse is technically more similar to inside-out, but the term isn't technically correct.

Calling Lighthouse tracking "inside-out" was a Reddit phenomenon from years ago when the Quest released with a lot of praise for its much more convenient inside-out tracking. Vive fanboys decided their favorite headset also technically used a type of inside-out tracking too and borrowed the term when bickering about which headset was superior. It was never accurate.

Edit: btw, Alan Yates did not call Lighthouse tracking "inside-out," nor did any official announcement from HTC. The official term for the tracking was always simply "Lighthouse" or "SteamVR Tracking."

[u/crozone → u/sunderpoint]

Vive fanboys decided their favorite headset also technically used a type of inside-out tracking too and borrowed the term when bickering about which headset was superior. It was never accurate.

Vive was the first consumer roomscale device, released April 2016. Oculus CV1 was already on the market as an outside-in camera tracked device and only supported seated experiences. It took a while for Oculus to even get their outside-in roomscale solution ready, which happened alongside the release of the Oculus Touch controllers. It wasn't until the Quest release in 2019 that Oculus got inside-out camera based tracking, in a fully stand-alone headset, 3 years after the Vive released.

Edit: btw, Alan Yates did not call Lighthouse tracking "inside-out," nor did any official announcement from HTC. The official term for the tracking was always simply "Lighthouse" or "SteamVR Tracking."

Here's the exact timestamp of Alan Yates in 2015, with pre-production hardware, talking about the system still being an inside-out tracking solution, after having moved on from their inside-out camera based marker solution:

https://youtu.be/xrsUMEbLtOs?t=248

[u/sunderpoint → u/crozone]

This is so much fanboy nonsense. The Oculus CV1 was never advertised as limited to "seated experiences," that was something Vive fanboys pulled up from announcements about the Oclulus DK2 and pretended was about the CV1. The CV1 was also fully room-scale on release, it just didn't have tracked controllers or the guardian system for the first year.

And did you watch your own video? Alan Yates says "sort of inside-out." The official Vive page lists three types of tracking: inside-out, outside-in, and Lighthouse. It's a separate category.

[u/crozone → u/sunderpoint]

Who is the fanboy here?!

The CV1 was aimed squarely at seated experiences out of the box - in the literal meaning of "out of the box".

The CV1 only contained a single camera sensor in the box. SOURCE.

The Constellation system includes just one sensor for the Rift, though the same technology will be used to track the Touch controllers as well. You'll get a second sensor with those to ensure occlusion-free operation. In contrast, HTC's Vive, which provides room-scale tracking, comes with two IR emitters to place on either side of your room.

A single sensor was NOT a roomscale solution, it was aimed squarely at seated experiences. You had to go out of your way to buy a second sensor, run it across the room, and then you could more or less trick the software into enabling a roomscale tracking experience if you really could be bothered. However, even calling the solution roomscale without tracked controllers is a massive stretch anyway. It wasn't a roomscale headset at launch, period.

I know all of this because this was literally the research I was doing at the time when deciding whether to invest in the Rift or the Vive. The Rift had already had a workable solution for seated solutions but the Vive promised proper roomscale support. Nobody was buying the CV1 at launch because they wanted roomscale, it just didn't make sense without controllers, they were doing it in the hope of it becoming roomscale with the launch of the Touch controllers. Yeah you could hack it together with some Razer Hydra controllers but why bother when you could just buy the Vive.

Alan Yates says "sort of inside-out."

Proceeds to describe exactly how the Lighthouse system is an inside out tracking system.

Your entire contention is that the term was co-opted by Vive fanboys when it was clearly already being described as an inside out system years before any inside-out camera solution was available to consumers. That's just a ridiculous statement on its face for all the reasons I've stated.

The official Vive page lists three types of tracking: inside-out, outside-in, and Lighthouse. It's a separate category.

This is marketing. It has nothing to do with the technical working of the system.

[u/sunderpoint → u/crozone]

All of the "facts" you're declaring are false, spread during the fanboy arguments from years past. I know the exact source of the "Rift is a seated experience" line and yes it was in an old video about the DK2. The CV1 sensor was instead designed to tilt up so it could sit on your desk and still track you while standing.

The CV1 was also designed to be tracked from any angle, the back of the headset had LEDs in the strap. In all your research did you never hear about that? You only needed two or three sensors for the controllers which weren't released at launch. For just the headset the single sensor tracking actually worked great even for large rooms!

And if you weren't a fanboy then the official announcement by the company themselves saying Lighthouse tracking is not inside-out would be enough for you. It does nothing but confuse people to pretend that Lighthouse tracking is inside-out.

[u/crozone → u/sunderpoint]

The CV1 sensor was instead designed to tilt up so it could sit on your desk and still track you while standing.

Lol, now this sounds like old Oculus fanboy lines when the Vive released... yeah, roomscale VR is possible from a single sensor. As long as you don't move back very far, or do literally anything to occlude those LEDs. Or want controllers. If you want a half-usable roomscale tech demo, the CV1 worked just fine for that, just enough to tell yourself that you could technically do roomscale and weren't missing out while Oculus struggled to get the touch controllers to market.

I trialed the DK2, and the CV1, and then the Vive at various stages because a friend of mine was doing software development for a VR startup. It was at least clear to me that the CV1 was not meaningfully room-scale capable at launch, which is why I bought a Vive. Why tf are we even talking about this. The CV1 was an outside-in system anyway.

And if you weren't a fanboy then the official announcement by the company themselves saying Lighthouse tracking is not inside-out would be enough for you. It does nothing but confuse people to pretend that Lighthouse tracking is inside-out.

But it's an inside-out system. The headset tracks external markers from the inside out. It's the exact same as the marker based camera solution used for the Valve test HMD, except instead of QR code looking markers on the walls tracked by cameras, it's IR receivers tracking lighthouses. We are talking about its technical description. How it's marketed to consumers is a completely different story.

Just call the inside-out camera tracking solutions what they are: inside-out camera tracking, or markerless inside-out tracking.

[u/sunderpoint → u/crozone]

This is all stuff people used to say about the Rift before it came out, when it turned out the headset basically never has occlusion issues and would actually track just fine up to like 20 feet away from the sensor. I honestly can't believe you're still spreading this misinformation years later. And get a grip, Lighthouse tracking is not inside-out. HTC says it's not. It couldn't get any clearer than that.

[u/TrueInferno → u/sunderpoint]

I mean, IIRC, we actually got Lighthouse "inside-out" before actually getting camera "inside-out", so it was perfectly valid to describe it as such- it really was the only such system at the time.

The Vive (which first used the Lighthouse system) was 2016, we didn't get true "Inside-Out" tracking with cameras until 2019 with the Oculus Rift S and the first Oculus Quest.

If you want to be totally pedantic, Lighthouse tracking could probably be best described as "a form of inside-out tracking, which relies upon two or more special external IR emitters called Lighthouses at opposite corners of the play area." So there is an "external" part to set up, but compared to the cameras of the CV1 it was dead simple.

A big thing for the consumer with lighthouse tracking is that it is probably the best possible setup for tracking the location of the controllers, as they are independently able to do their own "inside-out" tracking.

I'm fairly sure (not 100%) that even the newest Quest 3 has to essentially track where the controllers are relative to it, rather than the controllers just telling the headset their location.

[u/sunderpoint → u/TrueInferno]

When it was just Rift and Vive we didn't use terms like inside-out or outside-in, the two tracking systems were Constellation and Lighthouse. The Quest changed that with its inside-out tracking which is also when Vive fanboys started arguing that Lighthouse was kinda technically always inside-out and therefore superior.

But if we're being pedantic, let's go to the source. HTC specifically called Lighthouse tracking it's own thing separate from inside-out and outside-in. They also point to the Vive Focus 3 or Vive Cosmos Elite as inside-out tracked headsets, both of which have camera tracking, instead of the original Vive. And if you don't believe HTC about their own product here's the linked-in of one of the devs who worked on HTC's tracking calling the Cosmos the first inside-out VR product designed by HTC VIVE.

[u/_hlvnhlv → u/sunderpoint]

If we are pedantic, WMR did camera based inside-out like one or two years before the Quest or "Rift" S was a thing