Distortion fix: vertical placement on face is PARAMOUNT

@Heliosurge this post should be pinned as it is very important and will help a lot of people

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wow, because of guys like you I love this forum. After all, there are many skilled and creative people here that can do a lot for the Pimax devices and VR in general.

Whether it is opening up the device to gain some insight, tinkering with config files, thinking about efficient ways to make it a better experience. Keep it up! Iā€™m sure the vertical placement workaround will help other HMDs as well. @aesopfabled thx for providing this.

Btw. I like ā€œourā€ youtubers, each in his own way, but THIS is the kind of stuff that Iā€™d expect from a good VR related channel. Not only how much money I need to spend to gain a better experience, more like, what can I do to make the stuff I already got work much better. Unfortunately they fall very short on beeing creative with techā€¦and Iā€™m talking about slamming the DAS on EVERY headset that comes out. The guys, sitting at home for hours, trying to print parts to actually connect it seamlessly, thatā€™s creative tech.

I think itā€™s plain stupid not to take advantage of a lot of stuff that was posted here. Itā€™s way more entertaining and enlightening than simply reading out from the established sites what I could easily read up for myself. Sometimes I wonder though if they just consider it ā€œnot entertaining enoughā€ for a broader audience or whether they actually lack tech skills themselves and are afraid to touch topics like that.

Sorry for letting off some steam in both directions :slight_smile:

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Not for me, but then again I use the vive 6mm memory foam vr cover.

Admittedly the other night when I was trying it I noticed it less pronounced and shifted the position around and saw it again, so I can well believe this. It defiantly lessened the effect so will do some more playing with positioningā€¦ although I couldnā€™t even get my 5K+ to work at all last night and quickly resorted to ody+ so I could play some Project Cars 2.

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Whatā€™s worked for me reliably:
Pitool is set to start with windows.

  1. Unplug display port before boot-up pc (fully powered down.)
  2. Bootup is done Windows is open. Turn on headset.
  3. Open pitools. Plug DisplayPort in. Light now glows from lenses.
  4. Launch steamvr.

Iā€™m pretty sure something with how mobi detects pimax in DisplayPort is preventing it from initializing in pitools but not having it plugged in at boot seems to fix it for me.

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Sorry for off-topic but to explain my issue last night. It started with this one with the line in the middle so I restarted the HMD, then it sat there red led, so restarted HMD, restarted the service, rebooted pc, and it didnā€™t want to come on. I had one moment where it went grey, then only one eye lit up then went off. At that point Iā€™d wasted too much time as I was due to race with friends.

This is Kickstarter Power Forum hereā€¦whe should be proud of ourselves, we are VR pioneersā€¦merry Xmas to everybody!!

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I received my 5K+ yesterday, and at first noticed bad distortion in all directions. Before yelling on the forum, I was determined to make it look good. After changing IPD/FOV settings around, adding my 6mm facepad onto the existing one, and moving the hmd up higher in my face, itā€™s very acceptable now. Iā€™m surprised no one mentioned moving the headset up on the face until recently. I went to the forum and noticed 2 new posts about vertical placement, so those guys beat me to it, but Iā€™m glad weā€™re all figuring out how to make this thing great.

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Yes, this is just AWESOME! This community is awesome, @aesopfabled is awesome!!

We finally have a solution to one of the biggest issues.

With so many smart people here ā€¦ imagine what could be done if Pimax open source the drivers / PiTool.

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oi this is huge. When Sjef is saying it really decreased distortions you know it actually worked! now need the other guys who were also having distortion issues to try this before i post this on r/vive lol, just to make sure

@NoobstaysNoob
@RetrospectVR

Also, you HAVE to pin this topic @Heliosurge @anon74848233

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It would be useful if Pimax HMDs had knobs to adjust lens/screen vertical position and also near far position. Then can fine tune exactly for sweet spot.

EDIT Actually, this proves that eye tracking can definitely fix any distortion issues. Once we have eye tracking, the dynamic distortion profile can just adjust to wherever the eyes are.

No we need good head straps that will reliably keep the headset in place vertically

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Ok I just tried this and I think itā€™s a face structure thing. If I move it up higher the distortions are a little better but I can feel the glass of the lens on my forehead.

When in normal use I always find my eyes are so close to the lenses that my eyelashes are pushing against them sometimes.

So I tried pulling the headset outwards away from my face a few mm and the distortion was gone! So basically I need to find some thicker foam for the edges and Iā€™m golden!

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adding here from an earlier post on the same subject.

FrescoĻ€8k

Yen

10m

Iā€™ve also found that both moving the hmd up or down correctly or moving the lens further away or closer to the eye can effect distortion and have not experienced any distortion at all for awhile while playing my go to game at the moment. I mentioned that lens distance to eye can be an issue also for certain users in a previous post and its nice to get more confirmation. Another helpful recent post by @aesopfabled has also confirmed the importance of vertical adjustment. Hopefully people will not just plop the hmd on without adjusting the headset in all XYZ axis. I seriously believe that many have reported distortions that could have been entirely corrected or if not at least substantially made less with proper adjustment including of course IPD. I feel this information should be made known to every new or current user who may experience geometric distortion. @anon74848233 .

Reply

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Might be worth also mentioning a few anatomical factors, such as that depending on the relative protusion of oneā€™s brow and cheeks, the pitch of the HMD can vary; And that faces are not perfectly symmetrical - e.g. the distance from your nose to your left eye, may not be identical to that from the nose to the right - I, myself, have to shift HMDs sideways a bit, to find the sweet spot for both eyes simultaneously.

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Cool to hear youā€™ve fixed it too now, awesome!

I actually think it works decently now, just need to tighten up the top strap, and the headset is so light it pretty much stays where you put it.

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Vrcover.com might be a good first try

I posted this on r/vive and r/pimax and itā€™s the #1 post on both subreddits :+1:t2::+1:t2::+1:t2: Class find @aesopfabled

PS, never post these things in the oculus sub, youā€™ll get downvoted to hell and youā€™ll get people saying pimax is shit and how they canā€™t afford to get a translator in their interviews :joy::joy::joy: not even joking btw, go here and youā€™ll see https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/a8c7za/pimax_meetup_demo_the_pimax_8k_and_5k_also_a_side/ really canā€™t stand them at all manā€¦

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For whatever itā€™s worth, I have purchased the aftermarket Vive face cushions and they really helped me get better positioning both for convergence and vertically.

This is really an ergonomics issue, so depending on your various personal metrics, results will vary. For me, the thicker padding allows the headset to squish into my face a little better which helps control both that axial tilting, and how/where itā€™s holding on to my face as I adjust things vertically. The OE padding is a bit softer- and for me at least- trying to get it situated properly left the upper part of the cushion fully compressed against my brow with no support below. With this thicker pad you have a little more room to work, though I will say it does let a little daylight in below. I will probably cut the center nose area of my OE cushion and fill that area in.

I think it would really benefit Pimax to offer a good range of face cushions along with the improved head strap.

The second thing I wanted to touch on is the added flexibility in IPD now that I can better position the HMD. And again mileage may vary, but I found that with a better situated HMD, I can play a little more with the IPD depending on my usage. My IPD by the Oculus tool was about 64.5 Ā±, but I find with this padding, I can play with the IPD up to about 65.5 and it stays comfortable, but allows me to tweak based on whether the game at hand favors things near or far in my view. In Elite, I am using a closer IPD and it helps my far view tracking, but in IL-2, The wider IPD seems to help me better focus on the dials and gauges that are kind of right in my face. This all is probably dependent on how all of our eyeballs are set up, but I think in general, better positioning of the HMD will allow for better use of the IPD dial.

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