It seems like everything here can also be done with any iPhone using ARKit. Obviously the headset is better, but not $3500 better than just looking through your phone.
Just thought I’d raise this since it weirdly isn’t mentioned in the article.
I used a similar technique the last time I moved - scan the apartment using the iPhone, then I had a 3D model for measuring and planning out the space before/during the move. It’s a big help when planning out furniture etc.
And I scanned my old place before leaving so I can virtually step into it any time I want. iPhone via finder/preview handles showing 3D models in AR out of the box.
That's neat. Once it is built, I think a cooler use is to trace wiring and plumbing through your walls of your existing house. Your revit model may include all of this data, or at least the plan. Things change. :)
Though this is especially helpful for old homes where you have to sort of improvise ethernet wiring.
I normally just use it to consume 4k hdr media though.
It has not lived up to being a utility player device, but so far it is so good at media delivery that is sort of okay.
I'm really excited to see AR take off in use cases like this, given how useful it would be to give all our technicians e.g. a legacy Google Glass (not the Intelligent Eyewear thing) and direct them to a rack, overlay information about a failed component, and walk them through the repair SOP.
This is an absolutely standard feature of any VR headset that has ever been released in the history of VR headsets. Make a 3D world, walk through it. What am I missing?
"Ah yes, how hard could it be?", he confidently asks.
> What am I missing?
So much.
> This is an absolutely standard feature of any VR headset that has ever been released in the history of VR headsets
The article is describing "room scale positioning". The first consumer available headset to offer this was released in 2016.
It may feel like it's been around forever if you're not familiar with the space except as a consoomer, but exploring a 3d space at room scale has only recently come into the realm of possibility for consumer grade headsets. For much of the 80s and 90s (and 00s), it was head tracking only. Real time positioning and moving around required positioning hardware that was a magnitude more expensive - and pretty much always had very specific space limitations. Sure, it existed to some degree, but it was such inexpensive addition that using an expensive and complicated treadmill was often considered the economical choice.
In fact, I don't think there was even a "professional" solution that offered room scale positioning before the vive. Previously, they all had specific limitations like a 4 x 4 foot area or were massive tech demos that existed in a quantity of one in a university basement somewhere, running a very tailored demo, and they certainly weren't feasible in the 90s.
> Make a 3D world, walk through it.
First of all, how do you map the room? Do you set up lighthouses? Low latency positioning? To do what is in the article, you need a large space and the ability to map into it. Only recently, has "inside out" tracking become feasible. Previous generations didn't have it, and it's almost a guaranteed requirement for any large scale deployment of VR - for example, exploring multiple rooms.
Second, how do you create the room? It may seem simple, but VR headsets require more than double the computation, and that means that any geometry and graphics you inert of the world needs to be within the compute budget of the headset solution. The fact that the person in the article was able to just export a USDC directly out of fusion and have it render without hitting the compute budget limit is amazing and really speaks to the graphical power of the AVP.
Lastly, stitching, the 3-D solution and compositing, and the real world is a very difficult problem. Again, it may feel like we've had the technology, but really we haven't had the high speed camera solutions in small packages, and the compute power to process all of that in anything approaching a consumer solution. To do what AVP is doing with the USDC files, composing them into the real world, and even applying lighting information, previously would have required a fleet of large and expensive machines. And that doesn't even include transparency and applying real-world attributes of lighting and reflection onto the USDZ file, a a task that's hard to parallelize.
Vision Pro: when you're done sitting in the dark on your couch looking at photos of the family who left you, you can use AR to remodel your apartment. It even has textures.
Apple doesn’t sell the Vision Pro in Spain yet, so acquiring one would require taking a trip to France.
For Vision Pro owners: is it worth it? Do you use it often? The post does mention a very compelling use case, but it is quite narrow (how often are you remodelling your house?)
It is the greatest piece of technology I have ever owned, and I have a very hard time recommending it anyone.
It's clear that it is the future. But there's still some steps between where Apple is at with it today, and where it needs to be in order to be a mainstream product. I would look and see if you can find one used either in the local market, or via a short trip if possible.
Favorite tech product I have ever purchased. I use it as my main MacBook display for often 8+ hours per day. As long as you are willing to bump up the font size a bit, the programming experience is fantastic. I use it as a 21:9 display, but it can go up to 32:9. My wife and I watch movies together in the theater environment, and the in-room sharing experience is great. My face and neck were prepared from numerous past headsets, but my wife really hasn't had any comfort issues. Since this is her first headset, I think that just varies by person.
Not worth it. Get a Meta Quest 3 and can vibe code something similar in a few hours. I recommend WebXR that comes with the built-in browser. Easier to distribute, share, collect feedback and iterate than native. And can use A-Frame: open source framework, very accesible and that I help maintain :)
It’s a cool use case, the same thing is achievable with other VR headsets of course. I imagine you can buy a second hand Quest 2 headset for under 100 euros
This is a killer use case, but you should also take a peek at the Human Factors Handbook -- it's got great information about how to architect buildings like homes that will help you avoid some pitfalls I've seen in custom homes that I've been the second owner of.
It would be interesting to see someone apply the principles and techniques of Christopher Alexander to this - trying to "grow" the house virtually and seeing what it might feel like before committing to building it.
But this use isn't specific to the Vision Pro, or am I wrong? What prevents things like that from running on any other VR headset, like my half-broken Quest 2?
I agree. Despite the housing shortage, no more houses should ever be built. If you don't like getting wet in the rain, I dunno, find a cave or something.
It seems like everything here can also be done with any iPhone using ARKit. Obviously the headset is better, but not $3500 better than just looking through your phone.
Just thought I’d raise this since it weirdly isn’t mentioned in the article.
I used a similar technique the last time I moved - scan the apartment using the iPhone, then I had a 3D model for measuring and planning out the space before/during the move. It’s a big help when planning out furniture etc.
And I scanned my old place before leaving so I can virtually step into it any time I want. iPhone via finder/preview handles showing 3D models in AR out of the box.
Arkit is the first thing i thought of and has way way more of an adressable market.
That's neat. Once it is built, I think a cooler use is to trace wiring and plumbing through your walls of your existing house. Your revit model may include all of this data, or at least the plan. Things change. :)
Though this is especially helpful for old homes where you have to sort of improvise ethernet wiring.
I normally just use it to consume 4k hdr media though.
It has not lived up to being a utility player device, but so far it is so good at media delivery that is sort of okay.
One of our engineers built a full data center walkthrough tool on an AVP (complete with data pulled from the building CAD files, as well as our internal DC operations tools): https://www.linkedin.com/posts/fluidstack_our-latest-hackath...
I'm really excited to see AR take off in use cases like this, given how useful it would be to give all our technicians e.g. a legacy Google Glass (not the Intelligent Eyewear thing) and direct them to a rack, overlay information about a failed component, and walk them through the repair SOP.
Nice. I would love to model all my existing furniture and while in VR be able to move things to test different arrangements!
This is an absolutely standard feature of any VR headset that has ever been released in the history of VR headsets. Make a 3D world, walk through it. What am I missing?
You’re missing the difference between a feature and an application of that feature.
One application is a toy. The other is catching mistakes before applying hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"Ah yes, how hard could it be?", he confidently asks.
> What am I missing?
So much.
> This is an absolutely standard feature of any VR headset that has ever been released in the history of VR headsets
The article is describing "room scale positioning". The first consumer available headset to offer this was released in 2016.
It may feel like it's been around forever if you're not familiar with the space except as a consoomer, but exploring a 3d space at room scale has only recently come into the realm of possibility for consumer grade headsets. For much of the 80s and 90s (and 00s), it was head tracking only. Real time positioning and moving around required positioning hardware that was a magnitude more expensive - and pretty much always had very specific space limitations. Sure, it existed to some degree, but it was such inexpensive addition that using an expensive and complicated treadmill was often considered the economical choice.
In fact, I don't think there was even a "professional" solution that offered room scale positioning before the vive. Previously, they all had specific limitations like a 4 x 4 foot area or were massive tech demos that existed in a quantity of one in a university basement somewhere, running a very tailored demo, and they certainly weren't feasible in the 90s.
> Make a 3D world, walk through it.
First of all, how do you map the room? Do you set up lighthouses? Low latency positioning? To do what is in the article, you need a large space and the ability to map into it. Only recently, has "inside out" tracking become feasible. Previous generations didn't have it, and it's almost a guaranteed requirement for any large scale deployment of VR - for example, exploring multiple rooms.
Second, how do you create the room? It may seem simple, but VR headsets require more than double the computation, and that means that any geometry and graphics you inert of the world needs to be within the compute budget of the headset solution. The fact that the person in the article was able to just export a USDC directly out of fusion and have it render without hitting the compute budget limit is amazing and really speaks to the graphical power of the AVP.
Lastly, stitching, the 3-D solution and compositing, and the real world is a very difficult problem. Again, it may feel like we've had the technology, but really we haven't had the high speed camera solutions in small packages, and the compute power to process all of that in anything approaching a consumer solution. To do what AVP is doing with the USDC files, composing them into the real world, and even applying lighting information, previously would have required a fleet of large and expensive machines. And that doesn't even include transparency and applying real-world attributes of lighting and reflection onto the USDZ file, a a task that's hard to parallelize.
Architecture has always been a great fit for VR. Game engines like unreal engine integrate both VR and architecture software for example.
Vision Pro: when you're done sitting in the dark on your couch looking at photos of the family who left you, you can use AR to remodel your apartment. It even has textures.
Wow that is dark. Personal experience?
Throwback reference to the original Vision Pro launch ad I believe
Perhaps this timecode: https://youtu.be/Btf4mN37OsU?t=52
Apple doesn’t sell the Vision Pro in Spain yet, so acquiring one would require taking a trip to France. For Vision Pro owners: is it worth it? Do you use it often? The post does mention a very compelling use case, but it is quite narrow (how often are you remodelling your house?)
It is the greatest piece of technology I have ever owned, and I have a very hard time recommending it anyone.
It's clear that it is the future. But there's still some steps between where Apple is at with it today, and where it needs to be in order to be a mainstream product. I would look and see if you can find one used either in the local market, or via a short trip if possible.
Favorite tech product I have ever purchased. I use it as my main MacBook display for often 8+ hours per day. As long as you are willing to bump up the font size a bit, the programming experience is fantastic. I use it as a 21:9 display, but it can go up to 32:9. My wife and I watch movies together in the theater environment, and the in-room sharing experience is great. My face and neck were prepared from numerous past headsets, but my wife really hasn't had any comfort issues. Since this is her first headset, I think that just varies by person.
Interesting. Anybody out there been able to do this with a Quest 3?
Not worth it. Get a Meta Quest 3 and can vibe code something similar in a few hours. I recommend WebXR that comes with the built-in browser. Easier to distribute, share, collect feedback and iterate than native. And can use A-Frame: open source framework, very accesible and that I help maintain :)
It’s a cool use case, the same thing is achievable with other VR headsets of course. I imagine you can buy a second hand Quest 2 headset for under 100 euros
It is not worth it. The problem is the weight. For all of the good features it has, it's so heavy that you can't use it very long.
Im waiting for v2/smart glasses by now , weight seems to be the most sticky issue to daily usage
The idea that Vision Pro is going to jump from a 600-gram bulky headset into smart glasses any time soon is a widespread delusion.
Instead, what will happen is that it will get gradually slimmer and lighter with each generation, a few hundred grams at a time.
This is a killer use case, but you should also take a peek at the Human Factors Handbook -- it's got great information about how to architect buildings like homes that will help you avoid some pitfalls I've seen in custom homes that I've been the second owner of.
It would be interesting to see someone apply the principles and techniques of Christopher Alexander to this - trying to "grow" the house virtually and seeing what it might feel like before committing to building it.
this is cool, but live surgical guidance is possibly cooler :)
here i was thinking this was a link to the latest wd video where he destroys a cybertruck while wearing vision pro's...
But this use isn't specific to the Vision Pro, or am I wrong? What prevents things like that from running on any other VR headset, like my half-broken Quest 2?
Do not cut down that forest to build a house.
I agree. Despite the housing shortage, no more houses should ever be built. If you don't like getting wet in the rain, I dunno, find a cave or something.
Do not tell people what to do with their land
I’ll tell em whatever I like, lil kid