Meta’s Reality Labs division has unveiled new prototypes in its roadmap towards light and hyperrealistic virtual reality graphics. Advances remain far from consumer-ready, but the designs, codenamed Butterscotch, Starburst, Holocake 2 and Mirror Lake, could be added to slim, glossy headphones that support more detail than their own. Current Quest 2 screen.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Reality Labs chief scientist Michael Abrash, along with other members of Reality Labs, presented their work at a virtual roundtable last week. The event focused on designs that Meta refers to as “time machines”: bulky proof-of-concept tests designed to test a specific feature, such as super bright backlighting or a high-resolution display. “I think right now we’re in the middle of a big step towards realism,” Zuckerberg told reporters. “I don’t think it’s going to be that long before we can create scenes with basically perfect fidelity.” Visualization technology isn’t the only unresolved piece of this puzzle, but it’s an area where intensive research into Meta’s VR hardware gives it a try.
A wall of prototype designs from Meta Reality Labs
Zuckerberg reiterated plans to ship high-end headphones under the code name Project Cambria in 2022, following its initial announcement last year. Cambria supports full virtual reality and mixed reality, thanks to high-resolution cameras that can stream a video source to an internal display. It will also be shipped with eye tracking, a key feature for future Meta headphones. From there, Zuckerberg says Meta is planning two lines of virtual reality headsets: one that will stay cheap and consumer-focused, like today’s Quest 2, and another that will incorporate the newest technology. the company, aimed at a “prosumer or professional grade” market. . This follows reports that the company is already planning upgrades to Cambria and Quest 2, although these prototypes were not mentioned in the call.
The prototype Butterscotch high-definition headset.
Meta VR headsets sit next to a separate line of augmented reality smart glasses, which are designed to project real-world images instead of blocking them with a screen. Meta recently slowed down the launch of its first-generation AR glasses, and in general, VR screens have reached consumers much faster than AR holograms. But Meta’s prototypes show how far the company thinks it has to go.
Butterscotch is an attempt at a near-retina-quality headset display, something you might find in high-end headphones from companies like Varjo, but not in Meta’s current line. The “can’t be sent close” design required a half-degree field of view of Meta Quest 2, but offers about 2.5 times the resolution of (sort of) 1832 x 1920 pixels per Quest 2 eye, allowing users to read the 20/20 line of sight in an eye chart. Zuckerberg says it offers about 55 pixels per degree of field of view, slightly lower than the retinal standard of 60 pixels per degree of Meta and slightly lower than the 64 pixels per degree of Varjo.
The prototype of the Starburst headphones.
Starburst is even less enviable than Butterscotch, but it proves an equally impressive upgrade. The bulky design uses a powerful lamp, which requires handles to support its weight, and produces high dynamic range (HDR) lighting with 20,000 nights of brightness. “This is very impractical to consider as a product management for the first generation, but we are using it as a test bed for further research and studies,” says Zuckerberg. “The goal of all this work is to help us identify which technical paths will allow us to make significant enough improvements to begin to approach visual realism.”
“The jury is still out on a suitable laser source.”
Holocake 2 is moving in the opposite direction, exploring Meta options to make virtual reality headsets thinner and lighter. It is the successor to a 2020 design based on holographic optics, a light bending technique that allows an almost flat panel to replace a thick refractive lens. The result could be as thin as sunglasses, but Meta is still working on developing a standalone light source that would power them, almost certainly a laser, not the OLEDs commonly used today. “We’ll have to do a lot of engineering to get a viable laser for the consumer that meets our specifications – that is safe, low-cost, and efficient, and that can fit a thin VR headset,” says Zuckerberg. “Honestly, to this day, the jury is still looking for a suitable laser source.”
The presentation also discussed Half Dome, a series of long-lasting prototypes that can change focal lengths depending on where users are looking. These varifocal optics began as a clumsy mechanical system in 2017 and were later changed to a variety of liquid crystal lenses and, according to Meta’s internal research, can create a more compelling (and physically comfortable) depth illusion. in VR.
The Holocake 2 prototype.
Meta described Half Dome’s technology as “almost ready for prime time” in 2020, but today, Zuckerberg was more measured. “These things are quite far away,” he said in response to a question about the prime time comment. “We’re working on it, we’re really looking forward to incorporating it into one of the next headphones. I’m sure we’ll do it at some point, but I won’t announce anything today.”
Reality Labs will talk about more research, including how to more accurately capture real-world images for mixed reality, at the SIGGRAPH trade show in August.
The above designs exist as real hardware that Zuckerberg briefly displayed during the event. But Meta also unveiled a prototype, called Mirror Lake, that is essentially aspirational and has never been built. The design is more like a pair of ski goggles than Meta’s bulky Quest hardware, and would incorporate Holocake 2’s fine optics, Starburst’s HDR capabilities, and Butterscotch’s resolution. “It shows what a complete next-generation display system might look like,” Abrash said.
In addition to these features, Mirror Lake would include an external screen that projects an image of the user’s eyes, reducing the feeling of physical separation of people outside the headset. Meta showed this strange feature in a prototype last year, and may not be the only company interested in the concept: Apple would have considered a similar feature for its headset rumors. The idea is tailor-made for a mixed reality world where Meta has bet much of its future, but today the company emphasizes the incremental steps along the way.