Alexander Ilic

Alexander Ilic GM Switzerland & Senior Director SW Engineering at Magic Leap Zürich Area, Switzerland Connect Connect with Alexander Ilic Magic Leap ETH Zurich ETH Zurich See contact info 500+ connections Articles 2,885 followers Simulating a HTC Vive with an iPhone Alexander’s profile photo Alexander Ilic Published on LinkedIn At Dacuda, we are on an ambitious mission to democratize the VR ecosystem. One of our big projects for this year is to bring room-scale VR to the masses by using smartphones with our 6-DoF tracking solution to simulate functionality of a HTC Vive. Desktop VR today HTC and Oculus have done a great job with their high-end consumer VR systems. Especially the Vive with its well designed lighthouse tracking system and controllers sets the standard for room-scale VR experiences. Unfortunately, the price tag for these solutions is quite high. In addition to a decent PC/Laptop, you also need to spend around $500 to $800 for the actual headset. Mobile VR today Google Cardboard with over more than 50m installations has shown that there is significant interest in mobile VR. However, even the most advanced mobile VR solutions such as Samsung Gear VR lack key features for fully immersive VR. With a Gear VR, you can only look around, but not move in 3D space. In addition, mobile phones are still far away from the rendering power of desktop VR experiences. It is great that Google has initiated Daydream to optimize the next generation of phones and to standardize controllers for VR, but many challenges such as positional tracking are still ahead. Bridging Mobile and Desktop VR By the end of this year, we want to bridge the gap between mobile and desktop VR by leveraging smartphones as the core of a room-scale VR headset. Our solution – called vaiaVR – is a plug & play room-scale VR upgrade kit for any Google Cardboard style headset. The full package contains software for 6-DoF tracking on the phone, an OpenVR driver for SteamVR, an USB connection between phone and laptop, and two small controllers that mimic SteamVR Controller functionality in a reasonable way. Benefits include: At least 10x lower costs to play room-scale SteamVR titles since you already have a phone Increased reach for game developers since existing SteamVR titles can be played without modification Leverage powerful rendering capabilities of laptop for a ultra portable VR setup Be able to spontaneously "jump" into VR anywhere by opening up your laptop and connecting your phone based headset (no lighthouses and no room setup required) Will get better with each upcoming phone generation and benefits from initiatives such as Google Daydream-ready phones Where are we now? We have already a working prototype and will launch a Kickstarter campaign in the next few weeks. Visitors of the E3 expo in LA were already able to try out our recent prototype at the ZEISS booth. The setup featured a ZEISS VR ONE headset with a standard iPhone. Keep in mind that an iPhone is not exactly tuned for VR. On an iPhone 6S, our tracking algorithm already runs at 60 Hz, consumes around 15-30% CPU, and takes only 5ms processing time per frame. A motion-to-photon latency of <20 ms can be achieved. The demo was quite well perceived. First time VR users were excited to be fully immersed in theBlu and other SteamVR titles. Experienced GearVR users were impressed about the latency, image quality, and free movements in 3D space. Check out the following videos to see it in action. E3 Demo 1: Play HTC Vive SteamVR titles with an iPhone E3 Demo 2: Using a Daydream controller emulator for playing the Lab Stay tuned for our Kickstarter campaign and sign up at http://vaiavr.com to stay up to date. Like Comment Share See all Experience Magic Leap GM Switzerland & Senior Director SW Engineering Company NameMagic Leap Dates EmployedFeb 2017 – Present Employment Duration2 yrs LocationZürich Area, Switzerland Auto-ID Labs Director Company NameAuto-ID Labs Dates EmployedMay 2013 – Present Employment Duration5 yrs 9 mos Dacuda AG Founder, Chairman, and CTO Company NameDacuda AG Dates EmployedJun 2009 – Feb 2017 Employment Duration7 yrs 9 mos ETH Entrepreneur Club Board Member Company NameETH Entrepreneur Club Dates Employed2012 – Jan 2017 Employment Duration5 yrs Swiss Start-up Monitor Co-founder and member of steering committee Company NameSwiss Start-up Monitor Dates Employed2011 – Jan 2017 Employment Duration6 yrs University of St Gallen Assistant Professor Company NameUniversity of St Gallen Dates EmployedAug 2010 – Jan 2017 Employment Duration6 yrs 6 mos Cosibon AG Chairman Company NameCosibon AG Dates EmployedMar 2012 – Nov 2013 Employment Duration1 yr 9 mos Auto-ID Labs ETH Zurich/University of St.Gallen Senior Researcher Company NameAuto-ID Labs ETH Zurich/University of St.Gallen Dates Employed2006 – 2009 Employment Duration3 yrs Bits to Energy Lab ETH Zurich/University of St.Gallen Senior Researcher Company NameBits to Energy Lab ETH Zurich/University of St.Gallen Dates Employed2006 – 2009 Employment Duration3 yrs equinux AG Head of Development Department Company Nameequinux AG Dates Employed2004 – 2006 Employment Duration2 yrs Show fewer experiences Education ETH Zurich ETH Zurich Degree NamePhD Field Of StudyManagement, Technology, and Economics Dates attended or expected graduation 2006 – 2010 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology Dates attended or expected graduation 2009 – 2009 Technical University Munich Technical University Munich Degree NameMSc Field Of StudyComputer Science, Computational Linguistics Dates attended or expected graduation 2000 – 2003