Feature: Displays
Figure 1: The metaverse will require AR, VR and legacy devices
Field of vision Te biggest battleground for AR in particular are the combiner optics, which overlay projected images on a transparent lens. Here, companies fight for the best colour rendition, the widest field of view and the largest eye box, to enable a convincing display experience that works for everyone. At present the industry is looking at surface relief waveguides:
Last May, WaveOptics was acquired by Snap (another social media giant looking toward the metaverse) and, in November, investment by Samsung Electronics in Digilens led to a valuation of $500m. An exciting development from Digilens is its TREX waveguide, which can double effective display resolution, aimed at reaching the 60 pixels per degree (ppd) goal. A headset that covers the 135° of the eye’s horizontal field of
view at 60ppd resolution is not possible nor advised, as only the centre of our vision is of high quality. By tracking our eyes, resolution can be maximised in the centre of the user’s vision. In the future, this eye-tracking tech may even be used to project AR/VR images directly onto the retina via laser beam scanning, avoiding the need for combiner optics and correction for eyeglass wearers. Companies in this space are using emerging image sensor
technologies to track the eye more efficiently. Event-based vision can help reduce processing by natively recording movement instead of a stream of conventional image frames. Using printed image sensors, eye-tracking technology can be
squeezed into smaller packages, too. Meta Materials (no relation to Meta) is already embedding micro-cameras directly into glass lenses, which can be integrated into combiner or magnifier optics.
Requiring touch Not only do AR and VR devices need to sense our movements, for full immersion, haptic (touch feedback) devices are required, too.
Figure 2: Hardware requirements for the metaverse In November 2021, Meta’s Reality Labs division showed
a prototype haptics glove that uses microfluidic systems to deliver local feedback from each finger to different areas of the hand. Although there was some controversy over this prototype’s resemblance to an existing product from HaptX, Meta’s efforts show that metaverse-focused companies want to deliver sensory experiences past the audio-visual ones. Now we are also beginning to hear from companies
integrating time-of-flight cameras in headsets for hand tracking, thus eliminating the need for game controller-style interactions with VR and AR devices. Apple is in this space, with LG Innotek supplying it with time-of-flight cameras for VR headsets. In some way we can say that the metaverse is already here.
The hardware development problems that hamper its quick and full realisation are slowly being surmounted, and light and effective AR glasses that will replace our phones and laptops look like a certainty.
www.electronicsworld.co.uk April 2023 29
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