OpenUVR: an Open-Source System Framework for Untethered Virtual Reality Applications

Advancements in heterogeneous computing technologies enable the significant potential of virtual reality (VR) applications. To offer the best user experience (UX), a system should adopt an untethered, wireless-network-based architecture to transfer VR content between the user and the content generator. However, modern wireless network technologies make implementing such an architecture challenging, as VR applications require superior video quality -- with high resolution, high frame rates, and very low latency. This paper presents OpenUVR, an open-source framework that uses commodity hardware components to satisfy the demands of interactive, real-time VR applications. OpenUVR significantly improves UX through a redesign of the system stack and addresses the most time-sensitive issues associated with redundant memory copying in modern computing systems. OpenUVR presents a cross-layered VR datapath to avoid redundant data operations and computation among system components, OpenUVR customizes the network stack to eliminate unnecessary memory operations incurred by mismatching data formats in each layer, and OpenUVR uses feedback from mobile devices to remove memory buffers. Together, these modifications allow OpenUVR to reduce VR application delays to 14.32 ms, meeting the 20 ms minimum latency in avoiding motion sickness. As an open-source system that is fully compatible with commodity hardware, OpenUVR offers the research community an opportunity to develop, investigate, and optimize applications for untethered, high-performance VR architectures.