A Disappointingly Lo-Fi System
Im so disappointed. Ive been a fan of stereoscopic imaging for decades having worked with it digitally in grad school in the 70s, then 35mm film based stills, moving to CRT hybrid imaging, and now digital systems. The whole idea of using a smart phones display and positional sensing is very clever—especially coupled with a low cost viewer—but at this point, its a toy not even as fun to use as a ViewMaster.
Not satisfied with a folding cardboard viewer, I sprung for a moulded viewer with high quality Zeiss lenses only to discover that it accentuates the spectral aberrations—colored halos and shadows at the edges of objects—that is seemingly inherent in this generation of display/viewers. Particularly missing is the ability to adjust the interocular distance of the left-right images to match the physiology of the person viewing. As a result, I get slightly nauseous even though I have a highly developed sense of stereopsis—the ability to sense depth by fusing two images with retinal disparity.
There are all types of annoyances too: like the inability to adjust the audio volume once the title has started and tendency for the app to become confused about what is up and down in meat-space so that I need to stop the video, go into another app the rights the display in landscape mode, and the restart the NYT app again.
Call me picky if you want, but I was hoping for at least an acceptable viewing experience; but unfortunately, once the novelty of "hey, Ive got VR on my smartphone" had warn off, there seems to be no there there.
Xpalm about
NYT VR - New York Times, v1.8