All Mode
Just this week, Lytro announced that it received 60 million dollars in funding while also saying that its newest 3D video content will arrive in quarter 2 of this year (1 April – 30 June). This is great news for anyone consuming large amounts of virtual reality video content. Lytro’s new technology which captures “light fields” will potentially change how virtual reality content is captured, produced, and edited. If their technology lives up to the high expectations that they have set, virtual reality videos should greatly improve in sharpness, color, 3D depth, and parallax.
A Troubled Past
Although they are now pioneering 3D virtual reality content, Lytro is best known for its efforts to create light field photographic camera technology. That said, their camera technology has not caught fire in terms of consumer demand or sales. So far, they have released two expensive cameras that very few people bought. The first of which was the boxy telescope Lytro digital camera and the more normal-looking Lytro Illum. Both of these cameras showed great potential but fell flat when it came to producing photos that were as good or better than DSLR cameras. Although they were problematic, the light field technology that these cameras used showed great potential.
Lytro Illum Light Field Camera. Image credit: Lytro
Capturing Light Field Video
With the influx of virtual reality headsets like Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, Lytro has worked hard to repurpose their light field technology for virtual reality video applications. Lytro’s light field video technology is well suited for virtual reality content because it captures depth information alongside color and light. Users can’t walk around in a filmed scene, but the 3D depth data captured by Lytro’s system provides an increased sense of depth. Their content allows for 6 degrees of head tracking. This means that their videos allow users to look left, right, up, and down, in addition to in and out of the video (hence the six degrees of motion). This allows users to peek in and out of videos. Because Lytro’s capture technique captures these extra 2 degrees, a much more realistic sensation of being in a video can be felt.
Parallax for Depth
https://vimeo.com/179832733
With these 6 degrees, Lytro says that highly realistic parallax effects can be captured and viewed to great effect. For those that don’t know, parallax effects are when objects appear to move relation to objects that are located behind them. Currently, virtual reality parallax exists only in 3D computer generated scenes that track head movement. The Oculus Rift’s extra camera tracks these extra 2 degrees of freedom whereas the mountable laser senses that accompany the HTC Vive do the same thing. 360 POV video technology cannot capture or display parallax effects. This is why objects often appear flat and disproportionally large or small in these videos.
12k Video!
https://vimeo.com/179833357
Beyond providing parallax and 6 degrees of head tracking, Lytro says that their new content should clock in at over 6k resolution per eye! This is outrageous. I can do the math and this is 12k total. At this resolution, virtual reality videos will be amazingly sharp. With a resolution this high, the screen-door effect that accompanies virtual reality videos will disappear.
That said, currently, there are no headsets that display at 6k per eye. However, it is a given that within a couple of years, there definitely will be. All in all, Lytro’s new virtual reality capture technology will bring amazingly sharp 3D virtual reality videos that will be able to make us feel like we are in other places, with other people, and direct witnesses to filmed events. Trust me, this will be really amazing for adult video content.
Light-field tech will revolutionize VR Video. Some day this technology will be perfected, just imagine the implications.
12k video, this is unbelievable. Can’t wait to try this.