cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

VR Base - A Rift Picture/Video/Camera Viewer for Android!

squirrelmonkey
Honored Guest
Hey guys!

I'm new here and excited to announce my first Oculus Rift project: VR Base!

You can find it here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nqr.vrbase&hl=en_GB

This is an app for Android smartphones and tablets which can be used to view images on your phone, watch short video clips or stream from your camera. All you need is to plug your smartphone or tablet into a Rift via the HDMI port and you're good to go.

This app is in very early stages at the moment and there are a number of kinks I need to iron out. I'm very sorry to be charging for a beta, but app development is my full-time work so I need to test to see if projects are potentially profitable before I can afford to invest too much time and energy. Please support this app and I'll make sure to bring lots of new updates and features.

Currently note that videos can occasionally get 'out of sync' which is a slightly unsettling experience. Watching shorter clips in MP4 format and making sure other background applications are closed will help. Note as well that streaming from the camera is currently very slow - that's because there's no way to 'split the feed' from the camera onto two views. At the moment the app works by capturing photos and loading them onto the screen instead. This is something I'm working on. For now it can be fun to experiment though - hold your camera up to your rift and move your head slowly and you can see 'through' your rift. In the future I could add AR features to this part. You can also see what you look like to other people/see your own butt... whatever floats your boat!

If this app is successful then in future I will be adding a Rift-friendly UI (so you don't need to take the headset off to select pictures etc.), as well as head tracking via USB (currently not supported), media controllers for the video player and better FPS for the camera. Also: YouTube! And video calls!

Let me know what else you'd like to see, what you think of the project, if you have any problems etc. Thanks a lot for your support and I hope you enjoy the app! 😄

Screenshots_2014-01-14-22-29-19.png

Screenshots_2014-01-14-22-26-02.png
17 REPLIES 17

FictionX
Honored Guest
Awesome project! I went ahead and bought the app, and ordered a slimport adapter as well 🙂 (I hope it'll work)

- Looking forward to trying it!

squirrelmonkey
Honored Guest
Ah wicked 😄 Thanks a ton for your support! Let me know any feedback you have and I'll be sure to work it into future updates.

BTW an adapter is a cool thing to own in general. I use mine for playing N64 games on the TV through a Bluetooth controller :ugeek:

yubinhydin
Explorer
I love the concept, But I am not going to Pay $3.50 for a product on my cellphone I cannot demo first, or is in beta.

squirrelmonkey
Honored Guest
I understand! Like I say, I'd love to give it out free but this is my living so I don't have that liberty. Sales for my last big app are drying up so I'm quickly trying to generate some income so I can get developing seriously again 😄 I need to test to see if there is a market that is willing to pay for this stuff. Your feedback is appreciated 🙂

By the way - you can actually demo Android apps for free. If you download something and uninstall it in the first 15 minutes, Google will refund you automatically.

noquarter
Honored Guest
I think you should sell your app for free and implement paid features. Otherwise you will not sell a lot of apps on android 😞

ReverendKyle
Honored Guest
I just purchased this and will be playing with it when I get home from work. I will keep everyone posted as to my findings.
Have you listened to the Rev VR Podcast yet? Listen and subscribe through iTunes or through Stitcher http://www.reverendkyle.com

jherico
Adventurer
None of your screenshots appear to demonstrate Rift specific distortion. Can you post some here?
Brad Davis - Developer for High Fidelity Co-author of Oculus Rift in Action

Pernar
Honored Guest
Looks very interesting. Does it support or have you thought about implementing a 360 panoramer viewing option that uses head tracking to determine which portion of the pano to show? That would be very interesting to me. Thanks.

squirrelmonkey
Honored Guest
"Pernar" wrote:
Looks very interesting. Does it support or have you thought about implementing a 360 panoramer viewing option that uses head tracking to determine which portion of the pano to show? That would be very interesting to me. Thanks.


Thanks! It's one of the things I'm looking at adding! Currently there's no head tracking, though you can get the data via a Micro USB. It's just then a case of working out what all that raw information means and decoding it... Otherwise I may use the phone's gyroscope in the meantime...

"jherico" wrote:
None of your screenshots appear to demonstrate Rift specific distortion. Can you post some here?


Currently not. That's what I'm looking into now... I'm trying to use a 3D library to warp the images but if that doesn't work I'll have to write an algorithm myself to edit the BMPs... fun! 😛 As it is though it's not actually that noticeable (only right at the edges) because it's only for viewing media. It's a little bit like viewing a film/picture on a marginally curved display which is actually okay. Still though, it's something that needs to be added - particularly for future applications - so I'm working on it now.

"reverendkyle" wrote:
I just purchased this and will be playing with it when I get home from work. I will keep everyone posted as to my findings.


Thanks very much! I hope you enjoy it, let me know if you have any difficulties/need any trouble shooting!

"noquarter" wrote:
I think you should sell your app for free and implement paid features. Otherwise you will not sell a lot of apps on android 😞


I've tried this business model and unfortunately it's never been that profitable. Ads is another route to go down but they pay out so little that you need millions of active users to make any money. I sell my app 'Multiscreen Multitasking' for cash and so far that's been the only way I can support myself as a developer. Hopefully if VR Base is a hit I will be able to look into other models/lower the price 🙂 Thanks for the suggestion!


By the way, there's some further discussion on the app here too:

http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1v9kr3/vr_base_an_android_app_that_allows_you_to_view/

Thanks again all!