Unfortunately, the Meta Quest 3 does not include eye-tracking technology. This is mainly because the cost of eye-tracking technology is far too high to implement on a scale that wouldn’t greatly impact the price. Thus negatively affecting consumers purchasing decisions.
Also, given that eye tracking is used primarily for research purposes, it would feel like it would need to be put in the right place on a primarily consumer-friendly product that is used for leisure activities. Rather, headsets like the Meta Quest 3 would benefit from advances in tracking technology done with eye-tracking technology to vastly improve their display and user interface.
Finally, eye tracking is often integrated into premium VR headsets designed for enterprise purposes. However, the Meta Quest 3 features AI hand-tracking technology, which provides a more accurate depiction of your hands in-game.
What is Eye Tracking?
VR eye tracking is the act of observing how people move their eyes and behave in virtual reality to get insight into user experiences, visual attention, and cognitive processes. To record and examine gaze data, researchers incorporate specialised eye-tracking sensors into virtual reality headsets. The creation of content, user interface design, and VR interactions are all enhanced by this research.
The ability to explore worlds that do not already exist or cannot exist has been made possible by virtual reality. This feature significantly broadens the range of experimental conditions available to researchers. Time, safety, money, or even the rules of physics—factors that would typically prohibit some tests from happening—no longer have to limit testing scenarios. Anything can be simulated in virtual reality.
Not only have testing options expanded, but technology has also had to keep up. You need to know where pilots are looking to evaluate their attention span during a new flight simulation.
How does Eye Tracking Work?
In most cases, eye tracking measures the distance constantly between the pupil centre and the cornea’s reflection; the amount of variation in this distance is dependent upon the angle of the eye.
This reflection is caused by infrared light, which is undetectable to the human eye and is captured and tracked by cameras. Computer vision algorithms can determine where the gaze is directed based on the angle of the eyes.
With one significant exception—the eyes in virtual reality don’t always point in the direction of the gaze—the idea is the same. In the real world, eyes exhibit “vergence,” which is defined as an angle of the eyes oriented towards a central point where the gaze meets.
In a normal situation, if you draw a line from the centre of each eye, they will meet at the object the person is looking at. The virtual reality (VR) display is positioned close to the eyes, making it sometimes difficult to see. However, the 3D content it shows creates a natural sense of depth. Thus, the incomplete gaze information is a challenge for VR eye tracking [1].
I have the missing information, which is fortunate because the eye positions don’t reveal the complete story. You can create a model of your surroundings by combining data on the depth of virtual objects in the VR environment. This allows one to draw a virtual line from the viewer’s direction into the virtual environment. Eye tracking can be done in some VR settings, but not all of them offer this information, which makes precise tracking impossible in some situations.
What is Hand-Tracking Technology?
With the aid of hand-tracking technology, you can interact and navigate a VR or MR world without the need for additional controls. Instead, your hands transform into a virtual representation of themselves, and you may naturally manipulate the virtual world with them in the same way that you would in a real-world setting.
Even people without any prior gaming or virtual reality expertise can interact with mixed reality or virtual reality content quickly and easily with the help of hand tracking. Components can be moved and interacted with by users using just their hands.
Users can seamlessly transition between engaging with real and virtual items in augmented and mixed reality. The ability to pinch, grip, and point is one way that users can interact with virtual content. Virtual avatars can also mimic hand gestures and movements in real life, adding a layer of immersion to your VR/XR applications and teamwork.
How does the Meta Quest 3 Implement Hand-Tracking technology?
The Meta Quest headset’s inside-out cameras are used for hand tracking to function. Your hands’ position, orientation, and finger configuration are all detected by your headset. Once your hands are identified, computer vision algorithms follow their movements and orientations.
Final Thoughts
Regrettably, the new VR standalone headset from Meta will not include eye tracking in its mixed reality features. Despite this, the Meta Quest 3 boasts hand-tracking technology that elevates immersion by accurately tracking and replicating your hands in-game.
With RGB cameras, increased depth sensors, a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, and various other cutting-edge features, this device offers a compelling entry point into the world of mixed-reality headsets. Once again, I’d like to thank you so much for reading this article. Please feel free to ask as many questions as you’d like in the comment section below.
