This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.
Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.
If you want to be pinged with a reminder asking about your project, let me know, and I'll harass you each week until you cancel the service
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Been absolutely swamped between work and volunteer work, but on the hobbyist side, finally got in rev0.2 of a carrier board for this thing, along with a used pair of these. I was holding off on hope for the L9s (release date: soon), but given some of the issues rev 0.1 hit and the amount of other work needed to glue these two things together, it's probably best to try at a smaller scale first anyway.
What's the application? Augmented reality overlay
Edit: ah, just saw your other post. That's really neat. I'm still looking for low profile glasses with a decent HUD, maybe those are worth a try?
It's just at the napkin stage, now, and I don't yet have the programming chops to pull it off. But there's some fun ideas happening in this sphere, and while it'll be a long while before I'm even thinking about that level of design, it's a good way to keep motivation to learn.
With the caveat that I've only had them in my hands a day so far, depends a lot on what tradeoffs you're wanting to make, and what your use case is.
The One Lites are lightweight and surprisingly bright, but adjustability is mediocre, especially for very large or very small IPDs. The resolution is about the max of what's relevant for the field of view, but the field of view isn't great (~45ish degrees diagonal), and the lower framerate compared to the Pros or XReals newer offerings is noticeable for gaming (and fixing a virtual object in real space while the user's head is moving). No AR glasses are going to be stylish, but while the birdbath-style optics and Temu-brand sunglasses don't scream 'geek' as much as a Moverio set, the thick frames still look weird (arguably weirder) indoors and the newer generations with waveguide optics are thinner and better quality. The diopter settings are nice if you're nearsighted, but they can't handle astigmatism and you'll still need prescription lenses if you want to see the world too.
That said, it's really hard to beat the price, especially with the very robust used market going around.
It's not a standalone device, so if you're wanting a HUD outside of the office or a commute they're not easy to use. I don't have a compatible smartphone, and compatibility is complicated with any of these glasses. Viture sells a neckband style mini-computer, and it's supposedly pretty lackluster in about every way. Most (Thunderbolt-equipped) laptops work, but if you want to use a desktop computer or raspberry pi it can get more complicated -- the Pro Dock is very heavily built to handle some goofiness with the Nintendo Switch, but it might be useful for some of those cases and isn't an awful deal.
Dedicated devices like the Even Realities stuff might be better if you want an ultrasimple HUD that connects to your phone, and they're low enough profile that I could see them in a normal eyeglasses store, though in turn they're supposed to be a nightmare for hobbyists to develop anything serious around, and the screen specs are (intentionally) pretty crap.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Rangefinder glasses?
Kinda. I've done a proof of concept that was just a rangefinder using a monochrome SPI oled and some plastic lenses and a different time-of-flight chip, and that did have longer range than this layout will (although you start running into eye safety issues trying to exceed 50m). This one's more intent to be closer-range (the spec sheet says four meters and that's being generous), but gives a reasonable depth map across a wide field of view. Assuming I can get the data off the chip anywhere near the right speeds, the next step's going to be trying to get this into a wiregrid map overlaid on the user's field of view.
If that works with a low enough latency that it doesn't cause an Exorcist revival, mid-term goal is to try to use that map to project virtual desktops or graphics to solid objects, first from a fixed viewer position and then as the user moves.
Most of the current implementations for that sorta stuff depend on fidicuaries like AprilTags (or QR codes) and thus visual-light cameras that have a wide variety of privacy concerns, or solely handle angular heading. I don't think all of what I want to try will work -- these glasses near-universally give up on pinning virtual items in absolute position to the user for reasons, as anyone that's tried to integrate IMU data into position will tell you -- but there's a bunch of things you can do if you're willing to give up the general case and might work.
Cool -- I've got an older gen TOF plus a little oled unit and an old (broken) rangefinder box from a press camera (all sitting in a plastic baggie) that I've been meaning to frankenstein together into a focus assist hybrid display for large-format cameras. Time is short, but I'll get round to it.
Curious how it looks for accuracy once you dig in -- probably less important in your application, but I need <5cm on the near end; much less demanding as distances get larger tho.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
How are you doing @Southkraut? I saw you mention elsewhere that you're sick. When it happens to I me, I always think that will give me time to work on a project, but fever-programming has never worked for me so far.
Got a miniscule amount of code and concept work done, but it's not really going anywhere.
I wish I had an Unreal mentor to show me the ropes, but I dread heading over to Discord land to talk to people. Discord is too fast-paced for me, and populated by the kinds of people who like that environment. I got really lucky when I had some actual professional game devs coach me when I got started on Unity and that was hugely beneficial. For Unreal, I'm a little lost. Not enough up-to-date documentation for my taste. The tutorials I find often leave me with more questions than actionable directions. Mostly blueprints just confuse me - when do I use them how to do what that I would otherwise just write in plain code in any other engine? Blueprints come heavily recommended, but it feels like trying to knit with uncooked spaghetti.
But yeah, mostly I was just properly sick. Made a good-sized dent in my gaming backlog, but mostly just by opening things up, writing a review à la "It's not very good. Not recommended.", uninstalling and moving on. Did some laundry. Cleaned the kitchen. Watched numerous documentaries and youtube videos on various topics. Ultimately slept more than anything.
To rotate back - I wish someone with Unreal experience would show up and light the one true way.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More pushups, more pullups, getting back to doing situps and other lying on back ab exercises. Watching this video on an exercise scientist has inspired me to stop fretting over the little things and get back to trusting the feedback my body gives me and start having fun with myself.
Crunches and such got a lot of negative coverage as exercises when I was last digging into the world of calisthenics, a good 15 years ago now. But I've been inspired to get back to the roots of exercise and just do what makes muscles ache without any specific thought beyond that. Lying on back ab exercises certainly do that.
Down from 75~ pushups in my teens, I can now do a measly 18 (jfc)
Down from 17 strict form pullups I can now do 7.
The focus will be on getting these numbers up for no reason other than liking higher numbers.
Notes on form: During pushups, for some reason, I had stopped flaring my elbows and instead kept them close to my body. Probably because I saw a youtube video on it. This makes pushups a chore, as this seemingly takes a lot of the chest out of it. Freely flaring my elbows out makes my chest ache, so we will do that.
Pullup form is still great, probably because I never watched any youtube videos on it.
Routine: 2x per day. High intensity 3xMax pushups and pullups superset.
I'm expecting a moderate improvement to pushups for next week, pullups might only advance by one. To insure high intensity I might start timing the routine. Probably not.
I'll ask for a reminder, if only to keep myself motivated. It would be highly embarrassing to write all this out and then not do it.
Good work man, most people can't do pull ups. A guy on YouTube I was recommended here was K boges and had I simply stuck to his daily pull ups, push ups/dips and squat format, I'd look like a greek statue by 2 years tops. K boges is a guy you may find helpful. He recommends adding single leg split squats and some smaller muscle work but mostly just stuff you're doing.
More options
Context Copy link
I just heard of a challenge on the radio: 2000 pushups from yesterday to the end of the month (for suicide or something). I just might participate too.
More options
Context Copy link
I'll join you on this lol. Just did my first little seasonal job of the year, and my winter exercises had not kept up my stamina.
Got about three weeks to get back in form for squatting and dragging heavy weights for 8-9 hours at a time.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
As previously mentioned, I was planning to spend the month of February doing a self-imposed NaNoWriMo. I unexpectedly had to move house last week so I ended up postponing the start date until yesterday. I will keep writing, aiming to maintain the pace of NaNoWriMo (1,667 words/day), until March 9th or I finish the first draft, whichever comes first.
Yesterday was surprisingly productive, I knocked out 500 words on my morning commute. Didn't reach my daily quota, but right now I'm 1,644 words up from where I started on Monday.
More options
Context Copy link