Tag Archives: IPD

Technology Transfer

Posted on by
4

I found out today that HTC now ships a tool to measure users’ inter-pupillary distances with new Vive VR headsets. When I say “tool,” I mean a booklet with instructions in many languages, and a ruler printed along one edge of each page:

IPD measurement chart shipped by HTC with new Vives.

Figure 1: IPD measurement chart shipped by HTC with new Vives. Image courtesy of reddit user DanielDC88, image source.

I thought this was great on multiple levels. For one, measuring the user’s IPD and entering it into the VR software, either manually or through a sensor on a physical IPD adjustment knob or slider on the headset, as in both Vive and Oculus Rift, is an important component of creating convincing VR displays. The more people get used to that, the better.

On the second level, I was proud. On April 9, 2014, I wrote an article on this here blog titled “How to Measure Your IPD,” which describes this exact method of using a mirror and a ruler. It even became one of my more popular articles (the fifth most popular article, actually, with 33,952 views as of today). I was a little less proud when I looked at my own article again just now, and realized that my diagrams were absolutely hideous compared to those in HTC’s booklet. Oh well. Continue reading →

How to Measure Your IPD

Posted on by
17

Update: There have been complaints that the post below is an overly complicated and confusing explanation of the IPD measurement process. Maybe that’s so. Therefore, here’s the TL;DR version of how the process works. If you want to know why it works, read on below.

  1. Stand in front of a mirror and hold a ruler up to your nose, such that the measuring edge runs directly underneath both your pupils.
  2. Close your right eye and look directly at your left eye. Move the ruler such that the “0” mark appears directly underneath the center of your left pupil. Try to keep the ruler still for the next step.
  3. Close your left eye and look directly at your right eye. The mark directly underneath the center of your right pupil is your inter-pupillary distance.

Here follows the long version:

I’ve recently talked about the importance of calibrating 3D displays, especially head-mounted displays, which have very tight tolerances. An important part of calibration is entering each user’s personal inter-pupillary distance. Even when using the eyeball center as projection focus point (as I describe in the second post linked above), the distance between the eyeballs’ centers is the same as the inter-pupillary distance.

So how do you actually go about determining your IPD? You could go to an optometrist, of course, but it turns out it’s very easy to do it accurately at home. As it so happened, I did go to an optometrist recently (for my annual check-up), and I asked him to measure my IPD as well while he was at it. I was expecting him to pull out some high-end gizmo, but instead he pulled up a ruler. So that got me thinking.

Figure 1: How to precisely measure infinity-converged inter-pupillary distance using only a mirror and a ruler. Focus on the left eye in step one and mark point A; focus on the right eye in step two and mark point B; the distance between points A and B is precisely the infinity-converged inter-pupillary distance (and also the eyeball center distance).

Continue reading →