If I close my right eye and look to the right side with my left eye, I can see clearly where my vision cuts off, and then visa vera with my right eye open looking left. After repeating this a few times:
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I figured the overlap being about the size of my fist holding it an inch away from my nose.
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In the vive using the vive wand it’s actually just about the same. So is this what gives you that sense of immersion? It seems pretty important. I guess it’s pretty obvious but is that what the pimax 8k will be?
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You’ve described the binocular overlap, and it is one source of depth perception. It’s not the only one. A closely related source is perspective over time - just like your eyes are in two distinct places, moving things are at different relative places over time, including your head itself. A third source, fairly weak compared to those two, is the focusing of your eye. It’s similar at a much more fine grained level, as it relies on beams of light originating from the same object converging on your retina only when the lens is bending them just right.
Note that the second of those relies on knowing your position at all times. This is the major difference between a VR system and a stereoscopic display, such as a “3D TV”. Stereoscopic and spherical video retain the lack of tracking problem; spherical lets you choose direction but not place, and therefore breaks the scale hints. Stereoscopy recovers one scale hint (binocular overlap) but not the other (position over time). Again we have other sources to rely on, such as prior experience of how large things we recognize ought to be.
The “sense of immersion” is really about the absence of nagging discrepancies. These might include narrow field of view, inaccurate perspectives, juddering motion, and blur. Things that in the very complex system of perceiving the world around you that your brain contains cause contradictions. Compared to the Vive, the Pimax 8K primarily addresses two: the “screen door effect” from low resolution and low pixel fill ratio, and the narrow field of view (which is much like wearing blinders). This should make it feel more direct (like you’re not wearing a face mask with multicoloured filters). It also has a lower base weight.
As for whether this “gives you that sense of immersion”, it’s a matter of what nags at your attention. It’s often hard to tell what feels wrong without having a comparison where that specific annoyance is relieved.
Do you think the depth perception will be good on the pimax 8k?
I think so, but I’m a terrible optimist. Compared to other headsets it will benefit from a fairly high resolution but may suffer from low overlap. I see no reason to believe it would have a particular problem with that part.