Nolo Home Helps Distribute Mobile VR Apps With 6DoF Tracking
Nolo VR, the creator of the Nolo 6DoF Motion Tracking kit for mobile and desktop VR devices, announced Nolo Home, a content distribution platform for 6DoF content on mobile devices.
Last January, Nolo launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the development of the company’s affordable six degrees of freedom (6DoF) VR tracking system. Nolo’s solution offers 6DoF tracking for VR platforms that don’t natively support full motion tracking, such as the OSVR HDK1 and HDK2, or the Pimax 4K VR HMD. The Nolo Motion Controllers also provide a 6DoF tracking solution for smartphone VR systems like the Google Cardboard, Google Daydream, or Samsung Gear VR platforms.
Last year, Nolo focused on delivering the hardware solution. Now it’s working to expand the software support. The company today released the Nolo Home beta, which offers developers a platform to distribute content that supports 6DoF tracking on mobile VR devices.
Mobile VR solutions are typically limited to 3DoF tracking because they lack sensors that track volumetric space. But the industry is shifting towards full room-scale tracking in mobile headsets. Lenovo’s upcoming Mirage Solo Daydream headset features Google’s WorldSense 6DoF tracking system, and HTC’s China-exclusive Vive Focus headset also offers a camera-based tracking solution. It’s nice to see the industry move in this direction—spatial tracking is an important element for full immersion. The Nolo Home content distribution platform gives developers an opportunity to share their room-scale VR content to more people on a wider range of hardware.
Nolo launched a beta release of the Nolo Home platform today. Currently, the platform offers five room-scale titles that support Google Cardboard, Google Daydream, and Samsung Gear VR headsets. The company said the catalog of games would expand and it has an open invitation to developers who are interested in adding content to the platform. Nolo provides SDKs for Android, Unity, Unreal Engine 4, and Windows on its website. The company said that the SDKs enable developers to port their VR games to the Android platform.
You can download the free Nolo Home beta from Nolo’s website. To use it, you must also have a Nolo VR 6DoF Tracking Kit, which is available from Amazon for $199.
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Kevin Carbotte is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware who primarily covers VR and AR hardware. He has been writing for us for more than four years.
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bit_user Why does it seem like every player in the VR hardware space has to have their own content distribution platform?!?Reply
When I first clicked on this, I thought they enabled 6-DoF tracking via conventional SLAM (like I think Google, Apple, and Facebook are doing). Now that I see it involves add-on hardware, I have my doubts about their prospects.