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Looking through their most recently filed patents, it looks like their main innovation is a HMD device that uses a combination of a high speed digital zone plat
by jclarkcom 12y ago
Looking through their most recently filed patents, it looks like their main innovation is a HMD device that uses a combination of a high speed digital zone plate, a masking device, and a traditional imaging device.
For each eye, there is an imaging device (720p/1080p resolution for example) that displays an image. In front of the imaging devices there are high speed mask device (LCD?) that blocks off portions of the image that are not at the current focal depth. The focal depth cycles quickly between 12 different values and easily driven by the z-buffer values from the renders. The light not blocked by the mask is partially collimated and guided towards the eye via optics and then a high resolution high speed digital zone plate is used to refocus the light at different depth levels using diffraction. The mask and zone plate update together at 12X (360Hz-720Hz) the rate of the image device (30-60Hz). The result is that pixels that should be at different depths are actually focused near that depth and the eye blends the 12 partial frames together to form one image that has a range of depth in it.
I expect they are using off the shelf parts for the imaging device (and maybe mask LCD) but manufacturing their own digital zone plates since they need super high resolution and high speed for those (at least 360hz) but only on-off values not color or grayscale. This is probably where a bit of their money is going.
If it works, you could get high resolution images per eye, and also see 12 buckets of depth so your eye would refocus to see things close up versus far away. This could potentially create a pretty good impression of something existing close to you, compared to existing AR where all objects are focused at a single fixed depth and there is a conflict between accommodation and stereopis cues.
Of course this is one of the patents filed, it could be just an idea they decided to file on, not what they are actually building.
- leoc 12y agoIt does seem almost certain they're aiming for realistic accommodation, whatever display technology they've chosen to go for. http://www.roadtovr.com/what-we-know-about-magic-leap-rumored-500m-investment-funding/ http://www.roadtovr.com/what-we-know-about-magic-leap-rumore... http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/science/taking-real-life-sickness-out-of-virtual-reality.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/science/taking-real-life-s...
- mortenjorck 12y agoIn an interview with the South Florida Business Journal in February, Abovitz said “When you see this, you will see that this is computing for the next 30 or 40 years. To go farther and deeper than we’re going, you would be changing what it means to be human.” As exciting as all this is, this kind of language is giving me flashbacks to the buildup to the launch of the Segway.
- davesque 12y agoExactly. I was just thinking about this. All the secretive talk and hype-building.
- downandout 12y agoThis definitely seems to have the makings of Segway 2.0. One can only hope this yields better results, but I'm extremely skeptical. I can't imagine this in a form factor that would be comfortable for the average user.
- sitkack 12y agoSegway was the future of legs, this thing is the future of eyeballs.
- waterlesscloud 12y agoSegway still has a transformative future potential, though. Once they're completely autonav, along with all the rest of transportation, they become an important part of the overall automated system.
- CmonDev 12y ago"you would be changing what it means to be human" Yet not dealing with genetics or brain implants. What a sales-lier.
- bentcorner 12y ago> In front of the imaging devices there are high speed mask device (LCD?) that blocks off portions of the image that are not at the current focal depth. It would be interesting to see how this works in practice. The eye can't focus on something that close. For an example, imagine a speck of dirt on your glasses - it shows up as a blob in your vision, not as a dot.
- ricardobeat 12y ago"[...] and then a high resolution high speed digital zone plate is used to refocus the light at different depth levels using diffraction"
- srlake 12y agoThe eye is not focusing on that depth. The light coming out of the lens or LCD would be collimated / diffracted to form an image on the retina that appears to originate from a specific distance (or in this case, many different distances, multiplexed together). Just like with Google Glass, where the image appears to be at a distance and your eyes do not focus on the actual screen.
- Davidivad 12y agoThe video on farmpd.com is very interesting and different then every article is showing.
- _Adam 12y agoFascinating. I've been pondering this problem for quite a while and this is an entirely unexpected solution. Such a system can potentially be very small because there's no refractive optics.