VMD-L Mailing List

From: McGuire, Kelly (mcg05004_at_byui.edu)
Date: Tue Jul 31 2018 - 14:06:36 CDT

Sounds good, I will see if I can figure out how to use the test codes and test OpenMD on the new Vive Pro.

Kelly L. McGuire

PhD Scholar

Biophysics

Department of Physiology and Developmental Biology

Brigham Young University

LSB 3050

Provo, UT 84602

________________________________
From: John Stone <johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2018 1:03:29 PM
To: McGuire, Kelly
Cc: VMD Mailing LIst
Subject: Re: vmd-l: VR

Hi,
  As I noted in a few previous emails to VMD-L, the main thing we're
waiting on for VR in VMD is for the first release of the new
Khronos OpenXR multi-vendor VR APIs to be released. I'm going to
Siggraph in Vancouver in 11 days, and one of the major items I'm going
to be pursuing while I'm there is getting in contact with the leader
of the OpenXR working group to get either access to a pre-1.0 API (ideal)
or (more likely) an update on a release timeline and roadmap.

If OpenXR takes too much longer, then it may be that OpenHMD
might become a reasonable short-term candidate. I already have some
early code for OpenHMD in VMD now, but the last time I used it OpenHMD
didn't have support for anything other than the Oculus DK[12]. Checking
the latest page, it seems that they have some very preliminary support for
the HTC Vive now (no position data, no distortion correction):
  https://github.com/OpenHMD/OpenHMD/wiki/Support-List

If people want to contribute right now, it'd be great if people could try
running OpenHMD on whatever hardware they have, using the little test codes it
comes with, and report back what the results were and what OS and hardware
you tried it on. If it turns out that OpenHMD is quasi-usable on recent HMD
hardware like the Vive and Vive-Pro, then I might be convinced to go ahead
and add the necessary updates and new code into VMD rather than continuing
to wait for OpenXR to get an initial release.

Best,
  John

On Tue, Jul 31, 2018 at 12:38:07AM +0000, McGuire, Kelly wrote:
> I just received my Vive Pro VR set. I would be more than happy to help or
> test any progress made with VMD and VR systems. I can't really help with
> any of the programming per se, but if there are any updates to VMD that
> include interfacing with VR, it would be fun to try it.
>
> Kelly L. McGuire
> PhD Scholar
> Biophysics
> Department of Physiology and Developmental Biology
> Brigham Young University
> LSB 3050
> Provo, UT 84602 

--
NIH Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/           Phone: 217-244-3349
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/