Under-augmented reality, or how do we move Moveo
A month ago, I received a package with a curious device. Have you heard about the AR-Go project ? But surely about the Google Project glasses probably heard? So, while our teams with Google invent wonderful glasses, Epson put on sale a curious device - Moverio BT-100 . Yes, he lacks a lot that would make the gadget more meaningful and in demand, but in any case, the piece of hardware turned out to be unique - both in price and in terms of features.
The price is quite democratic for a device that has no available analogues. Vuzix has released similar translucent glasses (without a computing unit, just glasses) - but the price of $ 4.995 excluding delivery and the inevitable customs clearance does not cause the desire to make a purchase sooner. Epson points are $ 699. True, the Epson Store does not accept either PayPal or domestic credit cards - but we are grated rolls, we are not buying on the Internet for the first day :) In general, taking into account the assisted purchase through Shipito, the glasses cost me about $ 950. Not so tasty, but still available.
So, open the box with Epson Moverio BT-100.
')
The box is designed in a stylish black and green tones. On its sides are pictures, whose task is to cause certain emotions to the viewer: a picture with a rock concert should convey the sensation of energy and drive, the image of a cool sports car located on the other side - power and coolness, and the flying saucer on the third side of the box carries the message that we will meet with something mysterious and unknown.
What do we get in the kit?
The glasses themselves with a removable dark light filter fixed on them. Computing unit running Android 2.2. Usb cable Power supply 110-240V. 4GB microSD card. A bag with small details.
In the bag: 2 additional “padded bags” of different sizes (the third one is fixed on the glasses). A pair of removable headphones and foam rubber things for them. The stops, allowing to use Moverio with usual glasses.
Points noticeably heavy. Wearing them for more than an hour or two is uncomfortable due to pressure on the nose. Considering that the screen is visually 3-5 meters away from the viewer, with my gidget that didn’t cause discomfort, I had to buy ordinary glasses with diopters with one gadget (having broken glasses in 7th grade I didn’t think that something would make me again buy). I had to wear glasses with diopters under Moverio (or rather, Moverio on glasses). It became more comfortable for me to work with text, the 3D perception improved, but now the whole burden of the device did not fall on a rubber pad with a relatively large area, but on standard supports of glasses-with-diopters. My eyes got better, my nose got worse.
Epson states that the glasses run on batteries for 6 hours. Very similar to the truth. It is difficult to wear a device for more than 2 hours (it really pushes my nose), so six hours is enough.
Given that you have to work not with a touchscreen, but with a touchpad, the control is not the most intuitive. 10 minutes fought with the device, trying to figure out how to organize a drag. She gave up and read in the manual :)
Functional glasses causes a double sensation. Having connected to a WiFi-network, you can surf the Internet. True, typing the web address is not even on the touchscreen, but using the touchpad is still a pleasure. Alas, the glasses have no bluetooth, so the bluetooth keyboard cannot be connected. Media player allows you to watch movies - including stereo movie in anamorph side-by-side format. True, the films have to convert, because not every format is played. In my opinion, it would be worthwhile to use a non-smartphone-tablet interface for the wearable device (and another for Android, it seems, and not), but to make a new - “sharpened” application for wearable use.
The picture of the glasses is excellent, no grit, geometric display distortion or color halos. The impression that you are sitting 3-5 meters from a large TV. On the street, even in sunny weather, the screen does not fade to indistinguishability (when wearing a dark filter) - unless the sun shines in your eyes. But here you can always turn away from the sun - and see the picture on the glasses screen.
Apparently, projectors are located in the side arms of the glasses. A prism before the eyes reflect the picture in the eye. Stereo mode (anamorph side by side) is turned on / off by long pressing the “2D / 3D” button on the computing unit. To display a stereo image, you need to display a picture for the left eye on the left half of the screen, for the right eye on the right half. The screen resolution is 960 * 540, so that in stereo mode the picture is 480 * 540. The device interface is made in 2D, like a regular android device. Black color is almost transparent. The most opaque is the bright white color. If you wear glasses with a dark filter on, everyone understands that you have video glasses on your nose. If you remove the filter, the glasses are transparent - and Moverio is perceived by others as some bulky, but stylish “special glasses”. Surrounding people do not see the image that the user sees, in whose eyes unusual sparks from time to time slip through :)
Alas, I did not manage to use either the Google market or the Amazon store of Android applications. The first did not recognize the device and did not give anything to download it. The second - having seen the Russian (dollar!) Credit card, refused to ship even free applications. I had to download apk directly from a variety of file washers. Consoled by the fact that not having a cellular module, the trojan is unlikely to ruin me by sending SMS on the paid numbers. And since I would use Moverio for web surfing only as a last resort (why - when the good old Nokia N900 is at hand), then you could not worry about the safety of passwords. Now I have installed on my glasses as many as 2 “third-party” applications - ScummVM with Day of the Tentacle and AIDE - Android IDE, a development environment that allows editing (with a touchpad instead of a keyboard, this is definitely a masochistic lesson) and compiling Java projects. Simple Hello, World without problems gathered, installed and earned. But a slightly more complex application using OpenGL ES, which I wrote and compiled specifically for Moverio on the laptop, is quite collected under AIDE - but the glasses flatly refused to install a freshly compiled program.
A few words about the program itself. It would be strange to buy such a device - and not try to write anything for him. And not just “for him”, but using his unique capabilities. And I wrote a simple application that displays a rotating stereo cube in half a meter from the eyes. Indescribable feeling when a virtual cube is hanging inside your palms folded in a handful! I understand that experienced AR developers can boast of more impressive things. But one thing is to observe a picture of a virtual object embedded in the real world on the screen of a smartphone, laptop or head-mounted display. A virtual object hanging in the real world, which you look at without any screens and delays - a completely different impression!
The device would be incredibly interesting if it had a little more iron:
- Bluetooth would allow to connect a bunch of peripherals - an external keyboard, sensors, a GPS module, a smartphone. But Bluetooth is missing.
- Add a built-in camera to the glasses - and hello augmented reality! But there is no camera. Although this issue is solved by “file” and perseverance.
- If the glasses had an inertial unit (gyroscope and accelerometer), one could experiment with the imposition of virtual space on the real one. Not really augmented reality - but at least something.
- Even the simplest compass built into the glasses would allow for the implementation of a “navigation” additional real - at least at the level of displaying street names and house numbers in the direction of gaze. (GPS can be taken from a smartphone by connecting glasses over WiFi).
I think such a “lack of filedness” and a low price (let us remember about the practical absence of analogues on the market) are explained by the fact that this is a trial ball launched by Epson in the hope that developers — both companies associated with AR technologies and geek enthusiasts — Will find use cases, finish the device to a usable version. And then Epson will release an updated version - already understanding which market segment to focus on.
It seems to be a curious, but completely useless curiosity, everything in it is "almost." Moverio is almost able to work with additional real. This is a device that is almost suitable for outdoor use (heavy, afraid of rain, and even about the size of a small suitcase). It is almost capable of wirelessly connecting to external devices (you can use WiFi - but this is akin to removing the tonsils through the nostril). Even applications on it are installed almost without problems. And nevertheless, I consider this device an excellent acquisition - and I don’t regret at all “almost a thousand” dollars spent :)
Because Moverio is a wonderful device, perfectly integrated into the AR-Go system, on which we have been working for several years. AR-Go is a platform for creating wearable systems. No sensors? But we have already developed them for AR-Go. There is no camera? But AR-Go solves this problem too.
So what is this AR-Go that housewright and re-move Moverio? Do you have Epson glasses, a laptop and a webcam? AR-Go will turn them into a compact wearable augmented reality system. Do you have a Nokia N900 and Eyetop Centra glasses? Add AR-Go - you get a wearable complex for athletes. By the way, our prototype sports solution in April of this year received a prize from Lenovo at the Lenovo DoNetwork competition. And the prize was given to us not by the leading evenings, but by a representative of Intel, who had specially risen to the stage. And not just handed the prize, but gave a blitz interview right on the stage. You can laugh, but damn, I'm proud of it!
Thanks to Epson, which released the device, which helped us to work more actively on the tasks of our project!
Thanks to Google, which showed our potential partners that the direction in which we work is not a funny wonder, whose time will come in 10-15 years, but a current device that will press smartphones in the next couple of years.
Work on the AR-Go - perhaps the most powerful drive in my life!
The price is quite democratic for a device that has no available analogues. Vuzix has released similar translucent glasses (without a computing unit, just glasses) - but the price of $ 4.995 excluding delivery and the inevitable customs clearance does not cause the desire to make a purchase sooner. Epson points are $ 699. True, the Epson Store does not accept either PayPal or domestic credit cards - but we are grated rolls, we are not buying on the Internet for the first day :) In general, taking into account the assisted purchase through Shipito, the glasses cost me about $ 950. Not so tasty, but still available.
So, open the box with Epson Moverio BT-100.
')
The box is designed in a stylish black and green tones. On its sides are pictures, whose task is to cause certain emotions to the viewer: a picture with a rock concert should convey the sensation of energy and drive, the image of a cool sports car located on the other side - power and coolness, and the flying saucer on the third side of the box carries the message that we will meet with something mysterious and unknown.
What do we get in the kit?
The glasses themselves with a removable dark light filter fixed on them. Computing unit running Android 2.2. Usb cable Power supply 110-240V. 4GB microSD card. A bag with small details.
In the bag: 2 additional “padded bags” of different sizes (the third one is fixed on the glasses). A pair of removable headphones and foam rubber things for them. The stops, allowing to use Moverio with usual glasses.
Points noticeably heavy. Wearing them for more than an hour or two is uncomfortable due to pressure on the nose. Considering that the screen is visually 3-5 meters away from the viewer, with my gidget that didn’t cause discomfort, I had to buy ordinary glasses with diopters with one gadget (having broken glasses in 7th grade I didn’t think that something would make me again buy). I had to wear glasses with diopters under Moverio (or rather, Moverio on glasses). It became more comfortable for me to work with text, the 3D perception improved, but now the whole burden of the device did not fall on a rubber pad with a relatively large area, but on standard supports of glasses-with-diopters. My eyes got better, my nose got worse.
Epson states that the glasses run on batteries for 6 hours. Very similar to the truth. It is difficult to wear a device for more than 2 hours (it really pushes my nose), so six hours is enough.
Given that you have to work not with a touchscreen, but with a touchpad, the control is not the most intuitive. 10 minutes fought with the device, trying to figure out how to organize a drag. She gave up and read in the manual :)
Functional glasses causes a double sensation. Having connected to a WiFi-network, you can surf the Internet. True, typing the web address is not even on the touchscreen, but using the touchpad is still a pleasure. Alas, the glasses have no bluetooth, so the bluetooth keyboard cannot be connected. Media player allows you to watch movies - including stereo movie in anamorph side-by-side format. True, the films have to convert, because not every format is played. In my opinion, it would be worthwhile to use a non-smartphone-tablet interface for the wearable device (and another for Android, it seems, and not), but to make a new - “sharpened” application for wearable use.
The picture of the glasses is excellent, no grit, geometric display distortion or color halos. The impression that you are sitting 3-5 meters from a large TV. On the street, even in sunny weather, the screen does not fade to indistinguishability (when wearing a dark filter) - unless the sun shines in your eyes. But here you can always turn away from the sun - and see the picture on the glasses screen.
Apparently, projectors are located in the side arms of the glasses. A prism before the eyes reflect the picture in the eye. Stereo mode (anamorph side by side) is turned on / off by long pressing the “2D / 3D” button on the computing unit. To display a stereo image, you need to display a picture for the left eye on the left half of the screen, for the right eye on the right half. The screen resolution is 960 * 540, so that in stereo mode the picture is 480 * 540. The device interface is made in 2D, like a regular android device. Black color is almost transparent. The most opaque is the bright white color. If you wear glasses with a dark filter on, everyone understands that you have video glasses on your nose. If you remove the filter, the glasses are transparent - and Moverio is perceived by others as some bulky, but stylish “special glasses”. Surrounding people do not see the image that the user sees, in whose eyes unusual sparks from time to time slip through :)
Alas, I did not manage to use either the Google market or the Amazon store of Android applications. The first did not recognize the device and did not give anything to download it. The second - having seen the Russian (dollar!) Credit card, refused to ship even free applications. I had to download apk directly from a variety of file washers. Consoled by the fact that not having a cellular module, the trojan is unlikely to ruin me by sending SMS on the paid numbers. And since I would use Moverio for web surfing only as a last resort (why - when the good old Nokia N900 is at hand), then you could not worry about the safety of passwords. Now I have installed on my glasses as many as 2 “third-party” applications - ScummVM with Day of the Tentacle and AIDE - Android IDE, a development environment that allows editing (with a touchpad instead of a keyboard, this is definitely a masochistic lesson) and compiling Java projects. Simple Hello, World without problems gathered, installed and earned. But a slightly more complex application using OpenGL ES, which I wrote and compiled specifically for Moverio on the laptop, is quite collected under AIDE - but the glasses flatly refused to install a freshly compiled program.
A few words about the program itself. It would be strange to buy such a device - and not try to write anything for him. And not just “for him”, but using his unique capabilities. And I wrote a simple application that displays a rotating stereo cube in half a meter from the eyes. Indescribable feeling when a virtual cube is hanging inside your palms folded in a handful! I understand that experienced AR developers can boast of more impressive things. But one thing is to observe a picture of a virtual object embedded in the real world on the screen of a smartphone, laptop or head-mounted display. A virtual object hanging in the real world, which you look at without any screens and delays - a completely different impression!
The device would be incredibly interesting if it had a little more iron:
- Bluetooth would allow to connect a bunch of peripherals - an external keyboard, sensors, a GPS module, a smartphone. But Bluetooth is missing.
- Add a built-in camera to the glasses - and hello augmented reality! But there is no camera. Although this issue is solved by “file” and perseverance.
- If the glasses had an inertial unit (gyroscope and accelerometer), one could experiment with the imposition of virtual space on the real one. Not really augmented reality - but at least something.
- Even the simplest compass built into the glasses would allow for the implementation of a “navigation” additional real - at least at the level of displaying street names and house numbers in the direction of gaze. (GPS can be taken from a smartphone by connecting glasses over WiFi).
I think such a “lack of filedness” and a low price (let us remember about the practical absence of analogues on the market) are explained by the fact that this is a trial ball launched by Epson in the hope that developers — both companies associated with AR technologies and geek enthusiasts — Will find use cases, finish the device to a usable version. And then Epson will release an updated version - already understanding which market segment to focus on.
It seems to be a curious, but completely useless curiosity, everything in it is "almost." Moverio is almost able to work with additional real. This is a device that is almost suitable for outdoor use (heavy, afraid of rain, and even about the size of a small suitcase). It is almost capable of wirelessly connecting to external devices (you can use WiFi - but this is akin to removing the tonsils through the nostril). Even applications on it are installed almost without problems. And nevertheless, I consider this device an excellent acquisition - and I don’t regret at all “almost a thousand” dollars spent :)
Because Moverio is a wonderful device, perfectly integrated into the AR-Go system, on which we have been working for several years. AR-Go is a platform for creating wearable systems. No sensors? But we have already developed them for AR-Go. There is no camera? But AR-Go solves this problem too.
So what is this AR-Go that housewright and re-move Moverio? Do you have Epson glasses, a laptop and a webcam? AR-Go will turn them into a compact wearable augmented reality system. Do you have a Nokia N900 and Eyetop Centra glasses? Add AR-Go - you get a wearable complex for athletes. By the way, our prototype sports solution in April of this year received a prize from Lenovo at the Lenovo DoNetwork competition. And the prize was given to us not by the leading evenings, but by a representative of Intel, who had specially risen to the stage. And not just handed the prize, but gave a blitz interview right on the stage. You can laugh, but damn, I'm proud of it!
Thanks to Epson, which released the device, which helped us to work more actively on the tasks of our project!
Thanks to Google, which showed our potential partners that the direction in which we work is not a funny wonder, whose time will come in 10-15 years, but a current device that will press smartphones in the next couple of years.
Work on the AR-Go - perhaps the most powerful drive in my life!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/145462/
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