Hi All,
I have been contemplating a mod for some time to somehow improve the focus of my Pimax.
As I have posted before, I have had to use an extra set of lenses from low cost magnifying eye glasses to get a reasonable focus of the image in the HMD.
I am long sighted and have to wear glasses for reading books, PC screen etc and even with my glasses on, Pimax was not focused properly for me without the extra lenses.
It was a pain having to have those stuck onto the Pimax lenses and at last I decided to have a go at a mod I though up and at the same time, replace the lenses with a new pair that Pimax kindly sent me several months ago.
I’m hoping the video explains it in enough detail.
Now I’m not much of a video maker and I have left a lot of the disassemble and assembly procedure off because there are already a few videos that show that process in detail.
So checkout this YouTube video and I hope it helps you if it’s something you were thinking of have a go at.
Resultsstrong text
The mod was a total success and now I have a perfectly focused image and since I removed the blue filters at the same time, the image is very crisp and striking (and quite bright).
I did have to set it to the lowest brightness to help hide the motion blur and make it comfortable to look at. Actually it would be good if it were possible to reduce it a bit more. A slider control and more variation range would be great.
The mod has made a huge improvement to my VR experience.
I still wear my glasses, but I don’t need to extra lenses any more.
Thanks guys.
Must say I was a bit unsure if this would work out and I’m relieved that is has.
In my opinion it proves that if Pimax modified the design of the lens holders so that the lenses could be moved either side of the default position by just a few millimetres, I think that it would allow focus adjustment that would suite the vision of most people.
I had a chance to try my unit with a couple of games like Unity-Chan and Elite Dangerous game and also a couple of 360 Videos and removing the blue filters has certainly made the display brighter and the colours are clear and striking, but I do notice that if I move my head the motion blue is quite severe.
Reducing the brightness to LOW_LEVEL_2 has helped but it’s still quite bad. However any motion in the game (Unity-Chan girl dancing etc) is totally clear and without blurring, but moving my head degrades the image.
I was wondering if this is an effect of the increased brightness or something that has been introduced by this latest version of Piplay?
I would be interested in hearing from the experience of others who have removed the filters if they have noticed the added blurring?
Also, now that the image is perfectly focused, I can also see the display’s pixels and I was also wondering if the filters were masking these a bit?
It would be great to get some feedback on this from others before I consider reinstalling the filters again.
Yes, the SDE is slightly more noticeable without the filter. I think this is because you just get a clearer look at the display you notice the imperfections a bit better too. But you will also notice a lot more ‘depth’ in games and much more details in general. I really like it anyway.
You know, I never really knew what the SDE effect was before.
Is this something that can be improved on? It’s obviously not a display type issue since the motion of the video playing doesn’t show blurriness.
Is it caused by latency between sensing the head movement and adjusting the centre of the viewport?
It seems that some king of frame synchronised blanking is required during viewport centre adjustment.
So in other words, the viewport centre position is adjusted only during the frame blanking period. Then any latency would only cause a lag in movement and not image blurring. I think?
Hi, No I didn’t try SteamVR supersampling. My eyes were getting too tired so I reinstalled the filters.
I have set the brightness to normal plus one and I’m very happy now.
Unity-Chan and Elite Dangerous look terrific. A lot less motion blurring than without the filters. Even with the brightness at the lowest level it was too bright for me without the filters.
With the focus mod I made, the display with the filters installed looks best it’s ever been for me and the latest Piplay is also the best visually since 1.1.92, and the stability and compatibility is the best yet.
Also, today I noticed that the headset logo in SteamVR now looks like the Pimax. A nice touch
Great work so far Pimax but make sure your next Pimax unit has proper mechanical focus and PID and you’ll leave the rest for dead.
