Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Oculus developing ‘focal surface display’ for better VR image clarity

Mark Coppock
By
Oculus Research to Present Focal Surface Display Discovery at SIGGRAPH
Given all of the attention that it receives, it would be easy to forget that virtual reality technology is in many ways still in its infancy. Today’s VR experiences are better than they were a few years ago, but they remain limited in just how realistic they can be in a number of important areas.

One such area is in how well the technology mimics how our eyes focus on objects at various distances. This greatly impacts the overall visual clarity of the VR experience and Oculus is working on technology that should greatly improve its VR products and provide for sharper images and a more natural viewing experience.

Recommended Videos

Essentially, the issue revolves around the fact that our eyes are very good at focusing on objects no matter how close or far away. When we focus on one object, anything that is closer and farther away drops out of focus — creating the “bokeh” effect in photography.

Related

VR systems project images on a magnified flat screen and do well in focusing on objects at the depth we are viewing. However, when we look at objects that are not at the same distance in the image, then the system cannot focus correctly. That creates an effect where objects that are not currently in focus are incorrectly blurry.

The solution the Oculus is developing and that will be presented at the upcoming Siggraph conference is called the “focal surface display,” and it is intended to more accurately model how our eyes work. As Oculus describes it:

“Focal surface displays mimic the way our eyes naturally focus on objects of varying depths. Rather than trying to add more and more focus areas to get the same degree of depth, this new approach changes the way light enters the display using spatial light modulators (SLMs) to bend the headset’s focus around 3D objects — increasing depth and maximizing the amount of space represented simultaneously.”

The technology is not going to appear in an Oculus Rift system anytime soon, but it nevertheless represents an important and valuable field of research for future VR systems. The net result will be a significant improvement in visual clarity and systems that work better for users with eyeglass prescriptions using today’s VR technology.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Mark Coppock
Mark Coppock
Computing Writer
Mark has been a geek since MS-DOS gave way to Windows and the PalmPilot was a thing. He’s translated his love for…
How to delete Slack messages on desktop and mobile
how to delete slack messages message confirm mac desktop

If your company uses Slack as its preferred communication tool, then you'll need to know the basics of navigating it. And one action you might want to know how to take in Slack is deleting a message. You can remove a direct message or one you post in a channel using any of the Slack desktop, web, and mobile applications.

For those times when you type a message in the wrong channel or conversation or simply say something you wish you hadn’t, here’s how to delete Slack messages.

Read more
How to download a video from Facebook
An elderly person holding a phone.

Facebook is a great place for sharing photos, videos, and other media with friends and family. But what if you’d like to download a video to store offline? This means you’d be able to watch the clip on your PC or mobile device, without needing to be connected to the internet. Fortunately, there’s a way to download Facebook videos to your everyday gadgets, although it’s not as straightforward a process as it could be.

Read more
LG just knocked $300 off this 16-inch lightweight laptop
lg ultrapc 17 review front angled

For those people who are constantly on the go, grabbing a thin and light laptop makes life a lot easier, especially since they tend to weigh a lot less while also having very capable performance. Unfortunately, that does come at a bit of an extra cost, so we're happy to see this deal from LG on the UltraPC laptop that knocks it down to just $700 from its usual price of $1,000. That's an excellent price for a laptop that can outperform competitors at the same price range, even with the discounted price.

Why you should buy the LG UltraPC laptop
This new version of the Ultra PC is a big upgrade on the previous LG UltraPC laptop and follows the same lineup of LG's very thin laptops like the LG Gram 17, so LG has quite a lot of experience in this market. That's pretty obvious by the fact that the UltraPC has a tiny 0.64-inch thickness, making it thinner than many books. It doesn't lose out on other features, though, and it still comes with a pretty substantial 16-inch screen that runs a modified FHD resolution of 1920 x 1200, which may be a bit low for such a nice laptop, but it's not a dealbreaker if it helps keep the price down. The keyboard is also great to use, and while the previous version of the UltraPC had a comically small touchpad, this new one is a lot more substantial and useful.

Read more