Google Working On Ways To Show VR Users' Faces In Videos

Google is working on i of the master bug with sharing VR experiences through mixed reality videos – the obscuring of users' faces. Seeing the upper half of a user's face that the visor obscures tin can be very helpful in making a mixed reality sharing experience more engaging, simply even if present, the cameras inside a VR headset do non ever produce an optimal prototype. Google's latest project captures a VR user's face beforehand, maps and models their gaze, and uses the model and the information about the VR experience at hand to create a transparent overlay of a VR headset.

Google uses special tracking techniques to achieve this effect. For starters, the VR headset used by the visitor has a special marker that makes it easier to runway on video. The real-fourth dimension synchronization that is required to create whatever mixed reality video is also utilized in society to help make up one's mind where a user should be looking and to accurately and seamlessly insert the missing parts of their confront where they should be. This case uses an HTC Vive unit modified with eye tracking hardware, which allows Google's engineers to know in which management to bespeak the composite image of the user'south optics at the right moment.

Of grade, Google's model is far from perfect; without an eye-tracking headset, it cannot accurately show where a user is looking. It besides cannot evidence elements of facial expression happening inside the headset in real time and requires a complicated setup procedure. All of this ways that such technology won't be available to the masses for some fourth dimension, and when it is, the results may not be all that keen without special hardware and software considerations. Google's attempt is commendable, still, and creates a fairly lifelike issue. Detecting and showing the actual face instead of using a recreation would require sophisticated cameras installed on the inside of a VR headset, which is impractical and can cause issues with both the user experience and the produced video. Still, should the applied science take off, things like VR gaming, social VR applications, and enterprise VR applications all stand to benefit.

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