Oculus Rift DK1

The Oculus Rift DK1 is a VR headset that was made by Oculus. It has a flat focus. It is the first version of the Oculus Rift after the prototypes.

A Kickstarter campaign for DK1 begin in August 2012. Pre-orders for DK1 became available on Oculus' website on September 26, 2012. DK1 was released on March 29, 2013 for 300 dollars.

DK1 was intended to be used by developers and hardcore VR enthusiasts to create VR content.

The DK1 was mass-manufactured in China.

It was discontinued after the release of Oculus Rift DK2.

The design files for the DK1 were made open source in 2014.

On January 5, 2016, Oculus VR announced that the original Kickstarter backers of DK1 would receive a special Kickstarter Edition of the Rift.

Hardware

Oculus Rift DK1 is a large, black, goggle-like device that is strapped across your eyes. There is a foam lining around the face part of the goggles to give you comfort. The display of DK1 is a RGB LCD screen with a resolution of 1280 x 800, resulting in 640 x 800 per eye. It has a diagonal FOV of 110° and horizontal FOV of 90°.

Oculus Rift DK1 tracks the rotational movement of your head with Gyroscope, Accelerometer and Magnetometer. It allows you to look around and become immersed in the virtual world. The overall latency is about 50 to 60ms.

It comes with 3 different pairs of lenses along with the ability to adjust the focal lengths of the display. The material of the actual lenses is something like a polycarbonate or acrylic.

While DK1 offers a fairly immersive experience, it is not perfect. When using the device, motion blur is quite apparent. It also has pixelation due to low resolution and the appearance of looking through a screen door.

In addition to the head-mounted display, DK1 has a brick-like device called the control box. User must connect the HMD to the control box before it can be hooked up to PC. Along with various I/O ports such as HDMI, DVI, Mini USB and power connector, Control box allows the user to change the brightness and contrast of his or her display. The video input for the HMD is DVI. The control box changes PC's HDMI output into DVI.

The hardware was designed in part by Nirav Patel.

Specifications

Part	Spec
Display	7 inch LCD
Resolution	1280 x 800, 640 x 800 per eye
Refresh Rate	60 Hz
Persistence	3 ms
Field of View	110° (Nominal)
Interaxial Distance	63.5mm
Tracking	3 degrees of freedom
Rotational Tracking	Gyroscope, Accelerometer, Magnetometer
Update Rate	Rotational: 1000Hz
Tracking Latency	2ms
End-to-end Latency	50-60ms
Connectivity	USB, HDMI
Weight	.84 lbs (380g)

Setup Tutorial

1. Remove the DK1 headset and Control Box from the case. headset is attached to the Control Box through a cord.
2. Adjust the headset strap (lateral) so the headset fit comfortably in front of your face. Use and adjust the over-the-top strap if needed.
3. There are 3 pairs of lenses. The taller lenses (A) are for users with perfect or farsighted vision. The short lenses (B) and (C) are for users that are nearsighted. B is for moderately nearsighted users while C is for very nearsighted ones. A Lenses are installed in a new headset. You can switch the lenses with turn and lock-in mechanism. Note that, use A Lenses if you plan to wear glasses or contacts while using the headset.
4. Adjust the distances between your eyes and the lenses, called eye relief, by turning the screw on the sides of the headset with a coin. Adjust both sides equally.
5. Control Box is the square attached to the DK1 through a cord. It has 4 connectors: USB, Power, HDMI and DVI.
6. Attached the USB cable to the Control Box and your computer.
7. Plug the power cord to an outlet and connect it to the Control Box.
8. Use either the HDMI or DVI and connect it to the same type of port on your computer.
9. Turn on the Control Box with the power button. The other buttons adjust brightness and contrast of the headset display.
10. Download and install the Oculus Runtime for your OS from https://developer.oculus.com/downloads/.
11. Right click your desktop and go to Screen Resolution or go to Display Settings. There are 2 Displays, one of them is Rift DK. Under the Multiple displays: tab, select Duplicate these displays.
12. Run Oculus Configuration Utility (OculusConfigUtil) and configure the headset to your specifications.
13. Click on Show Demo Scene to make sure everything is positioned correctly.

Developer

Oculus SDK

Oculus SDK