CREAL, a company building light-field display technology for AR and VR headsets, has revealed a new through-the-lens video showing off the performance of its latest VR headset prototype. The new video clearly demonstrates the ability to focus at arbitrary distances, as well as the high resolution of the foveated region. The company also the rendering tech that powers the headset is “approaching the equivalent of [contemporary] VR headsets.”
Much different from the displays used in VR and AR headsets today, light-field displays generate an image that accurately represents how we see light from the real world. Specifically, light-field displays support both vergence and accommodation, the two focus mechanisms of the human visual system. Most headsets on the market today only support vergence (stereo overlap) but not accomodation (individual eye focus), which means the imagery is technically stuck at a fixed focal depth. With a light-field display you can focus at any depth, just like in the real world.
While Creal doesn’t plan to build its own headsets, the company has created prototypes to showcase its technology with the hopes that other companies will opt to incorporate it into their headsets.