Facebook has published an interesting blog over on its Tech@Facebook site that dives into how the Oculus Insight tracking system housed inside VR headsets like the Oculus Quest came to be.
The tech on which Oculus Insight is built is called SLAM, or simultaneous localization and mapping to be specific, and has previously been used in both robotics and AR smartphone camera effects to map out shapes in a space.
Forming Insight required Facebook engineers to build a more advanced version of that mapping tech that was also capable of running efficiently on a mobile device like the Quest.
“There are other complications, too. The infrared LEDs in the two hand controllers drastically change appearance when they move closer or farther away from the headset as you swing a virtual sword or maneuver a virtual spaceship,” reads the post.
“Oculus Insight also uses other sensors, drawing acceleration and velocity data from the inertial measurement units (IMUs) located in the headset and controllers. The system must process all of these data points in real time and, in the case of Quest, on a mobile chipset.”
The video above covers a lot of ground in regards to how Oculus Insight actually addresses those issues, while the full post offers a more in-depth rundown of how the Facebook team that eventually worked through those complications came to be.