Mark Zuckerberg reveals 4 limits that need to be overcome to achieve the final goal of making VR headset indistinguishable from reality
Let's take a look into the challenges that can make the brain think what you're seeing is real
Varifocal
Which provide the ability to focus on arbitrary depths of the virtual scene. The team address varifocal with a series of prototypes called half dome. The Latest model half dome 3 removes all the moving part from half dome 2 with a thin stack of liquid crystal lenses, electronic varifocal model. We can't see from the models how it helps to decrease the size of the headset
youtube.com/watch?v=Ab92r2Hq-qA&t=168s
Distortion
Light distortion from the lenses make their perception less real. the team build a distortion simulator which allowed to iterate more quickly on the issue
Retinal resolution
Having enough resolution to meet the resolving power of the human eye. Meta reveals a prototype called Butterscotch which the company says achieves a retina resolution of 60 pixels per degree. a resolution far better than quest two. This is only for the field-of-view, TheCompany didn't explain the resolution toward the edges of the lens.
HDR
High dynamic range which describe the range of darkness and brightness that we experience in the real world. To prove out the impact of HDR on the VR experience the team built a prototype called Starburst
Downsizing
One last challenge is to integrate all those features into a smaller headset. To make a smaller headset the distance of the lenses need to be shorter and the lenses itself thinner To that end Meta experimented holographic lenses and pancake optics in Holocake 2 prototype
It is unlikely those technologies can be integrated into a commercial headset I'm ready for a mass production in short-term. But the future is bright can't wait to try when they release a version that pass the Turing test I'm by tuning does it mean when you can't differentiate the real from the virtual
Thanks for watching and see you in the next one
