Light Field Technology: the Future of VR and 3D Displays

[@chuffpup]

In the late 80s I had the idea that a victorian stereoscope system could work with a crt display, so I took a 5 inch monitor with composite input from a commodore suitcase computer and mounted lenses in front. For my videos I made a 3d splitter from four mirrors placed in front of a video camera, two in a "v" shape with the point towards the lens, and the other two on either side on pivots, to get left and right images and refect them onto the "v". It worked surprisingly well.

[@JimGiant]

I had the same idea while while watching this video but I'll just use my laptop screen and render 2 cameras in Unity to the left and right of the screen.

[@raveltammeleht6278]

Light fields is a interesting topic. I remember seeing octane renderer for unity at some point in time, and they had something very similar. But the entire demonstration was so detailed that it quickly went from ray tracing to 4d to 6d to 8d ... and it quickly became overwhelmingly hard to understand what is even going on. But the summary was, that a single capture could give you the ability to look/navigate around a entire small world that was captured with a special camera. Also, I have been exposed to Stanford's materials quite often recently. I even acquired access to a old Stanford Objective-C GLUT example from early 2000's I used it as a learning base to understand the oldschool OpenGL and finally integrated a skybox and a Wavefront OBJ renderer to it. My next goal is to add BMP texture support and cubemaps. Anyways, huge thanks to Stanford for their widely available resources! Everytime I see "Stanford", I am in for good times!

[@satishgoda2242]

What a brilliant talk!!! Thank you Gordon Wetzstein.

[@aaroncaralho2599]

VR companies hate him! He revolutionized head mounted displays with one simple trick!

[@fenghuazhou4537]

It is!

[@jrel1kor]

It would have been nice to have seen any questions that the audience may have had. This is an extremely interesting concept. I've tried some of the ultra early commercial "VR" Headsets back in the early 90's and I can see what people are talking about, but I've never tried any of the modern VR gear out now. I do understand the concept and I know that they'll be a huge jump from what I have used in the past, but this, if they can get this to work well will revolutionize the VR industry, especially if they can keep costs down for the consumers.

[@fenghuazhou4537]

Technology is growing very fast. We love 3D; but we love to be free as well. To wear on glasses or goggles is awkward. A glasses free 3D monnitor is a better choice.

[@joelface]

Have you since tried any VR headsets?

[@Archangel125]

This sounds amazing in every way, except for the fact the GPU has to process x50 more data rather than x2. Standard VR is already hard enough to run :/

[@devrim-oguz]

Maybe we can let it not to compute as hard on the areas of our poor vision which is quite a lot.

[@TormodMyrvang]

Given the tiny differences between each image, there are a lot of possible optimizations (parallax mapping e.g.), so I don't think it will be much of a problem. If it catches on, the GPU's will also be optimized for this purpose

[@VladQuake]

I think that with imprecise but low latency eye tracking, this number could be reduced by 2/3 as the only "possible" versions will be rendered instead of all of them.

[@circuit10]

That's foveated rendering. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foveated_imaging

[@Waffle4569]

It's not necessarily 50x, likely less, a big part of lightfield rendering is that many low-res images can be combined to obtain a higher-res image. The real question is how high res is that combined image, good resolution screens are already a struggle as is and this complicates that a lot.

[@greyreynyn]

I would love a talk on the math side of things; that's fascinating you can create a lightfield with just two LCD displays

[@top115]

YES its comming closer ^^ 2021

[@OrangeC7]

We have a light-field display in the headset announced at CES, maybe a couple more years before it trickles down to mass-consumer products?

[@fenghuazhou4537]

@@OrangeC7 Not only light field, but glasses free 3D display with lenticular technology is available with us, for professional 3D or enthousiast use. It is perfect for 3D home theater. Check it out with us if you are interested.

[@fenghuazhou4537]

2021, definitely it is a big year for 3D.

[@jonaskalahd5110]

year 2034 will be great, cant wait

[@fenghuazhou4537]

Available for now. A awesome glasses free 3D monitor, dream becomes true!

[@prof.m.ottozeeejcdecs9998]

The new AVEGANT approach seems, at least, more logical!

[@jamesramsey2400]

I wander if we'll se this sometime soon

[@HenrikWichert]

I know hundreds of VR players who play multiple and up to two digits hours in one go. I also know complaints about motion sickness from non VR players. But heard never anyone ever complained about this vergence thing or that the headset was not pleasant to the eyes.

[@emil335]

I have vr and anything up close is suuuuper blurry cause of this. If you keep everything at an arms distance+ it's ok but up close it's awful.

[@HenrikWichert]

Strange, I can pick up objects in games, hold them in front of my face, move them closer and they are sharp (actually the closer the sharper) until they aren't even drawn anymore, because they would be inside of my head so it's basically sharper than IRL, because IRL things get blurry when they get closer than 10 cm to your eyes. Maybe different eye sight and headset make a difference.

[@emil335]

@@HenrikWichert you're lucky to have a really weak reflex or none at all. However, this probably makes it so you spend a little longer to focus on things IRL. Light field displays solves this for those that do have a strong reflex (mostly younger people, children have already learned it at 2) In addition it adds a realistic depth of field instead of an entire scene being the same blur. For me the reflex is super strong so i literally only see a blur up close unless i close one eye, in which case the eyes use blurriness cues to focus.

[@TechandDoc]

@@HenrikWichert Then you are probably not viewing your headset with the proper IPD settings. That will absolutely allow you clarity up close but it gives you a "flat" picture without much depth. Try messing with your IPD settings. When you can see clearly in the distance and objects up close are blurry, your settings are correct. Until they fix the "personal zone" problem you haven't experienced yet. heh

[@did3d523]

brillant but you need very big resolution display

[@ikonane]

Any update on this now 3 years later?

[@fenghuazhou4537]

Till today, new technologies are mature with glasses free 3D display or lightfield 3D display. While, a glasses free 3D display with lenticular technology provide 2 views i/o 4 views, so the image quality is doubled. With a good sweet spot, you can enjoy 3D movie in a comfortable distance, or install it as 2ndery monitor as to preview the 3D works right way for 3D creators. It is amazing new technology.

[@jeffreyokun2355]

Who's watching this in 2020 with Magic Leap being in trouble? His prediciton wen't quite wrong. It will take 5 more years to 10 even...

[@CharlesBosse]

Magic Leap is in trouble, but there are other companies doing light field 3d that are doing okay, and even a few CES demos of stuff like this. I think we are still a few years out on this tech being consumer affordable (and corporations aren't going to push this unless it enables skilled professionals to work remotely for longer periods) but I do actually think it will get there, though probably as "glasses free 3d" first, and then immersive 3d as the technology matures

[@devrim-oguz]

I think it would be more useful when applied on a larger scale to make holographic TVs!

[@fenghuazhou4537]

We have now glasses free 3D monitor 28"4K with eye tracking, perfect for 3D home theater. No glasses, no goggles, no ghosting, no headache, to enjoy perfect 3D images.

[@Brandon-ob9rg]

Crap. This was 6 years ago? We haven't progressed at all!

[@billmee4628]

AR can you say hololens

[@dennisrichards2540]

Wetzstein? . . . that's a wierd way to say Freeman

[@greenpixel556]

ok 5 years passed, where is my 4k vr headset for 300 eur ?

[@Orangejunece]

Oculus Quest 2

[@legendp2011]

uhh, Oculus quest 2 is 4k vr for $300

[@greenpixel556]

@@legendp2011 gameroom.lt/lt/vr/products/virtualios-realybes-akiniai-oculus-quest-2-all-in-one-vr-64gb-4569?gclid=Cj0KCQjwk4yGBhDQARIsACGfAesFM1TFkYRD6aFyf4YhDFoSTJ7o40IqwX7LiemIjBw7lLxVJh5B9U4aAkyqEALw_wcB doen't seem like 300 eur to me and same storry here www.skytech.lt/3010035401-oculus-quest-64gb-virtualios-realybes-akiniai-viskas-viename-zaidimu--p-528492.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjwk4yGBhDQARIsACGfAev3oedzgy01IBIibG0Tdqx30hQQCun3aTYgFXv_abjIJ_Qx8XhgoFEaAm71EALw_wcB and here pigu.lt/lt/kompiuterine-technika/zaidimu-kompiuteriai-priedai/zaidimu-kompiuteriu-priedai/oculus-virtualios-realybes-akiniai-quest-2-256gb?id=34012961&gclid=Cj0KCQjwk4yGBhDQARIsACGfAeu9es4DqqLSawjw40Y9lbdv253ygk61uTloPGO-QS_LCFP2d0b5u3UaAi04EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

[@did3d523]

like hologramme

[@cplenny4281]

You don't have a sound guy...

[@ongbaxe7435]

X

[@Nightspyz1]

this isn't a "huge problem" sorry

[@SpydersByte]

surely he means it's a huge problem in this specific field, not for the world in general -_-