{"id":337892,"date":"2017-04-08T07:00:30","date_gmt":"2017-04-07T23:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1464482"},"modified":"2017-04-08T07:00:30","modified_gmt":"2017-04-07T23:00:30","slug":"an-afternoon-with-avegants-prototype-light-field-display-headset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/an-afternoon-with-avegants-prototype-light-field-display-headset\/","title":{"rendered":"An afternoon with Avegant\u2019s prototype light field display headset"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen the light.<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, Avegant<\/a> showed off an early look at some of the crazy tech it has been working on that \u2014 in its most simple terms \u2014 seeks to make head-mounted displays function more like human eyes. It\u2019s an ambitious goal with more than a few interested parties. Many top tech execs and investors have high expectations for smart glasses to usher in the next computing platform wave, but in order to do that there are some major, non-trivial advances in near-eye display tech that will need to happen.<\/p>\n

One of the most-hyped and least-seen technologies that will allegedly solve many of these problems is \u201clight field technology,\u201d which Avegant is using this bulky feature prototype to showcase.<\/p>\n

TechCrunch had the opportunity to bring cameras in and\u00a0capture early demos of the prototype headset while also getting the chance to chat with\u00a0Avegant CTO Edward Tang, who was available to offer a little clarity as to what \u201clight field displays\u201d actually are. I expected the standard fare, a half-hour session with a few questions, but it was only over the course of the next few\u00a0hours, stashed in a demo room in Avegant\u2019s offices berating the CTO with questions, that I was able to fully appreciate what I was seeing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Most \u201cmagical\u201d technologies inspire instantaneous incredulity, but the thing about light fields is that you pretty much have to be a display expert to immediately be shocked by it, and that\u2019s because they\u00a0are designed to feel so natural. Your eyes naturally shift between objects and your focus changes accordingly, just like normal.<\/p>\n

Check out a bit of the experience in the\u00a0video below. It\u2019s admittedly a struggle to present the complexity\u00a0of a new display type through watching a\u00a0video on the conventional display it will one day replace, but alas.<\/p>\n

In an industry filled with buzzwords, it\u2019s hard to find someone who can easily pin down what a\u00a0\u201clight field\u201d is.<\/p>\n

You really have to change how you think of displays. When you\u2019re looking at a television screen, the entire display is a point of focus. You couldn\u2019t glance\u00a0at, say, a character onscreen and cause the rest of the environment to move out of focus because they\u2019re all on different focal planes. In the same vein, if you ordered up a fancy 3D TV you could see some objects seemingly moving closer to you but you wouldn\u2019t be\u00a0able to interact closely with what\u2019s in front of you. This is due\u00a0to the way our eyes converge on points of focus; within a meter or so you can\u2019t use stereoscopic video feeds to show objects because it looks awful and screws up your vision. With this technology you can not only see an object floating in front of your nose but you can cast it out of focus simply by looking at something else in the light field space.<\/p>\n

Avegant\u2019s take on a \u201clight field\u201d display shows your eyes a 3D representation of an image based on stacking multiple focal planes. It\u2019s a far from finished prototype, but it\u2019s entirely unique and the first consumer-minded \u201clight field\u201d type display that many in the tech press have been exposed to. Things like field-of-view and environment mapping are still problems that need to be tackled.<\/p>\n

The headset isn\u2019t the HoloLens-killer that some have billed it as, but it\u2019s more accurately an early glimpse at a display technology that will more seamlessly combine digital holograms with the rest of the physical world.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The crazy thing is Avegant has been able to create this technology while having raised\u00a0just under $37 million in funding, making due on far less than AR companies like Magic Leap, which has raised more than $1.4 billion from Google and Alibaba.<\/p>\n

Though the company has a consumer product, a headphone-like home theater headset called the Glyph, most of the engineering team has now shifted attention to the technology behind light fields. Avegant\u00a0showed me a cosmetic model of what this\u00a0could eventually look like, but they weren\u2019t all that forthcoming on whether they would actually\u00a0build headsets utilizing light field displays. With so many pieces of the mixed reality puzzle left to craft, their options are to either seek a hell of a lot more money or pursue\u00a0an acquisition from a company with interest in the space and the deep pockets to push the tech forward, someone like\u00a0Microsoft.<\/em><\/p>\n

While it\u2019s unclear what the time tables look like\u00a0for light field tech, the space is about to get a whole lot more exciting as tech titans continue to pour money into the cause of beaming the future into your eyeballs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" I’ve seen the light. A few weeks ago, Avegant showed off an early look at some of the crazy tech it has been working on that — in its most simple terms — seeks to make head-mounted displays function more like human eyes. It’s an ambitious goal with more than a few interested parties. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-337892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}