Better Oculus or Vive for FlexSim?

[marco_baccalaro]

[ FlexSim 20.1.0 ]

We would like to use the VR to do a digital mockup of a production line: making operators and experts moving around the line to understand if certain working points are easy to reach, if some materials around can interfere with the movements and if abetter placement of machines and materials can be done.

I have experience with the older version of Oculus and Vive. But I never tried the new ones. For sure I like much more for this kind of work, the usage of the Xbox joystick to move around instead of the "click and go" of the Vive controllers.

Can you give me some suggestion on what to buy?

[philboboADSK · Accepted solution]

The newer Oculus and Vive still have the same controllers as the older versions. All of the VR controllers are pretty standardized at this point. The main differences in newer versions vs older versions of VR headsets are improvements in the motion sensors and display (less screen-door effect). See Does FlexSim support the new Oculus Rift S?

If you want to change how you move around in VR, you are welcome to change how you move around. You don't have to use the default teleportation mechanism. The movement code for 3Dconnexion mice, Xbox controllers, and VR controllers is defined in the tree. You can see and modify it however you want.

See the following nodes in VIEW:/standardviews/documentwindows/Perspective>eventfunctions

• OnPreDraw (calls the input functions below and sets a timer for repainting when the model isn't running)
• OnDraw (draws the VR teleportation indicators)
• XboxInput (controls the view based on Xbox controller inputs)
• TouchInput (controls the view based on VR controller inputs)
• OnStick (controls the view based on 3Dconnexion mouse inputs)

My VR headset recommendation for FlexSim right now is the Oculus Rift S. That’s what we use in our office and at conferences where we demo VR with FlexSim on laptops.

The Oculus Rift S runs smoothly at 80 FPS with asynchronous spacewarp kicking in if you drop between below 80 FPS.

Other VR headsets (such as the HTC Vive and Windows Mixed Reality headsets) require 90+ FPS in order to avoid headache-inducing judder.

Because the Oculus Rift S uses asynchronous spacewarp, you can render bigger models more comfortably than you can with other headsets. With other headsets, you need to be very careful with optimizing your model’s framerate to ensure that it stays above 90 FPS.

For example, if your model runs at 30 FPS, it will feel laggy but workable in an Oculus Rift headset. In another headset, the view will feel so slow and broken that you will want to remove the headset as fast as possible.

[marco_baccalaro]

Your answer is really complete! Thank you very much Phil.