It’s been some time since VRFocusfirst discussed the potential of eye-tracking within virtual reality (VR) with specialists Tobii. In that time we’ve seen the rise of FOVE and NVIDIA’s own internal experiments with SMI, amongst many others, and yet Tobii had stayed on the sidelines. It appears the company was simply biding its time, as now it has announced that it is working with five partners in the VR space, including Qualcomm for the recently revealed head-mounted display (HMD) reference design.
自VR focus网站开始讨论VR与眼球追踪技术专家Tobii的潜力结合，已有一段时间了。在这段时间里，我们看到日本fove的崛起和英伟达smi内部实验的发展，在诸多尝试中，tobii还是处在边缘位置。tobii似乎一直在等这个时间，现在它宣布与5家VR行业的公司合作，其中包括最近高通，与之共同发布的头戴式显示屏的基准设计框架
You’ll have no doubt read about this partnership elsewhere on VRFocusalready, and while Tobii aren’t yet ready to reveal the remaining four unannounced partnerships the company has recently been offering technical demonstrations on a HMD that will likely be more familiar to all VRFocusreaders: the HTC Vive.
毫无疑问，您会从VR focus之外的网站或咨询中了解到这次合作，tobii还没准备公布其余的四家合作伙伴，然而，最近它为一VR头戴式一体机提供技术演示，这就是广大读者较熟悉的HTC vive
Tobii made it clear that this was a retrofit of their technology to a HTC Vive and in no way hinting at a future product (the rumour mill is doing a good enough job of that for the company as it is), however what they showcased was no less impressive because of it. With four different experiences available, Tobii offered a glimpse at the future of social VR, videogames, systems interface and foveated rendering.
tobii 本身的技术在HTC vive设备上做了改进与试验，也透露了未来产品发展的方向（当公司面临谣言时候，实际上对做好产品很有帮助），但是，他们的努力使得小样展示同样令人印象深刻。通过四种不同类型的体验，tobii让人一瞥VR社交，游戏，系统界面和注视点渲染的未来。
The first demo was a simple reactive pane in which the player could see an avatar that mirrored their movements with and without eye-tracking enabled. This piece – also benefiting from a variation showcased on Qualcomm’s reference design HMD – allowed for an evaluation of just how much the removal of the 1,000 yard stare from VR avatars could impact virtual human interaction. Quite simply, you needn’t expect VR to cross the uncanny valley before it begins to present the opportunity for genuine relationship building between two distant humans with progress in interaction such as this.
第一个示例视频仅是个简单的互动内容控件，体验者可以使用或是不用眼部追踪都能看到镜像反射的虚拟化身模仿他的行为动作。这次展示得益于在高通基准头戴式一体机套件设计的改进上，使得移除1000码(900多米）以外的虚拟人物对用户的体验影响程度，有了评估标准。很简单，你不必期望VR在两个远距离真人在类似这种情况下实现互动关系建立进步之前就跨过恐怖谷理论
（恐怖谷理论是一个关于人类对机器人和非人类物体的感觉的假设，它在1969年被提出, 其说明了当机器人与人类相似程度超过一定程度的时候，人类对他们的反应便会突然变得极之反感,即哪怕机器人与人类有一点点的差别都会显得非常显眼刺目，从而整个机器人有非常僵硬恐怖的感觉，有如面对行尸走肉）
A second demo was more directly related to videogames; or rather the hand-eye co-ordination often required therein. Throwing a grenade or using a bow and arrow can often be an imprecise activity in VR due to the lack of a crosshair. In traditional videogames, it’s a case of point and press a button, however with VR having motion-controls momentum and accuracy of arm movements also come into play. Tobii’s demo featured two types of rocks; one which did not allow for eye-tracking and one which did. It’s hard to tell just how weighted the demonstration was in favour of the eye-tracking rock, however it’s clear that regardless of how forcefully useless throwing without eye-tracking may have been, aiming the arc of a throw with eye-tracking enabled does make a huge difference.
第二个demo展示更多与游戏有关，但不是那种需要手眼协调反映的游戏。因为缺乏精准定位,所以在VR上扔手榴弹或使用弓箭动作反应不精准。在传统的视频游戏中，有一个很好的例子，按下按钮即可，但是在虚拟现实中，动作控制的动量和手臂动作的准确性也开始发挥作用。Tobii的演示展示了两种类型的岩石;一种不允许眼球追踪，另一种允许眼球追踪。很难判断这个演示对证明眼球追踪的效果有多重要，但很明显，不管你的无效投掷多么用力，如果没有眼球追踪，那么对瞄准眼球追踪的弧线确实会产生巨大的影响。
The next demo offered by Tobii centred upon menu navigation; removing the need to point and a middle click when selecting options in menus. No longer is it a case of click on a timeline, drag, release, but simply look at where on the timeline you want to skip a video to and click, with surprising precision. It’s a small yet welcome additional benefit of eye-tracking in VR – and potentially augmented reality (AR), too.
Tobii的下一个演示以菜单导航为中心;在选择菜单选项时，不需要点击中间的确定键。用户再也不用在时间轴上点击，拖拽，播放，而只要简单地看着时间轴上你想要跳过的视频，它会以惊人的精度进行点击、播放。在VR和增强现实(AR)中的作用是很小的，但潜在的眼球追踪的额外好处是令人欣喜的
Finally we get to foveated rendering, a technology that allows for lessens demands on a GPU as the number of pixels being rendered at full quality is lowered. When knowing where the player is looking, the surrounding pixels can be rendered as standard while those leaning towards peripheral vision can be of lowered quality, much like natural human eyesight. It’s a technology that VRFocus has reported on many times and one which numerous developers and hardware manufacturers have assured is coming, but no one seems to want to commit to when. According to Tobii, that ‘when’ has now become ‘soon.’
最后我们看到注视点渲染，一种当完全质量呈现的大像素渲染时，允许GPU运行压力减低的技术。技术分析到玩家在关注什么时，关注点周围的像素可以被渲染成标准像素，而那些倾向于外围的视觉的可以降低质量，就像自然的人类视力一样。这是VRFocus多次报道的一项技术，许多开发人员和硬件制造商已经确定了这一技术，但似乎没有人愿意承诺。根据Tobii的说法，“when”现在变成了“soon”。
Tobii’s latest eye-tracking solution for VR is suitably impressive, leading you to wonder why no HMD manufacturer has yet taken the plunge with a consumer device. One has to ask whether it’s Tobii’s inflexibility regarding exclusivity or a matter of cost, but those answers will likely be given once the remaining partners in Tobii’s quintuplet are revealed.
Tobii最近针对VR的眼球追踪解决方案令人印象深刻，这让你不禁想知道为什么没有HMD(头显)制造商在消费设备上投入产出。人们不得不问，是不是因为Tobii的产权排他性或成本问题，这些答案很可能会在Tobii五人组的其余合作伙伴被披露的时候给出吧。
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