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We all know the importance and the role that powerful graphics play in bringing highly rich content for immersive VR experience. One reason that tethered VR headsets are still considered favorable over mobile VR headsets is the fact that the powerful computer graphics can deliver a higher level of visual fidelity which we still don’t get from the mobile chipsets.
Google Seurat Surface-Light-Fields Tech
For all the mobile VR headset users, no need to get disappointed as Google has got some really special plans for you! At the recently held Google I/O 2017 conference, the company announced its new technology called ‘Seurat‘, a software-based approach that makes use of the surface-light-fields which can retain all the ultra high-quality assets and volumetric data which is then reduced to smaller number of polygons that can easily run on the mobile VR headsets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=14&v=zC5NtUqeex0
The other existing light-field approaches in the market are limited by the huge volume of data they consume. On the other hand, Google Seurat tech can achieve individual room-scale boxes of few megabytes and which is further expanded to a complex app with many such boxes. The great thing is that this app will be the same as a typical size of a mobile app we are currently using.
Director of Product Management at Daydream, Andre Doronichev, explains, “As a developer, you define a volume, one in which you wish the user to move around and view your scene. You also define parameters like the number of polygons and overdraw. And then you let the tool do its magic. It takes dozens of images from different parts of the defined volume, and then it automatically generates an entirely new 3D scene that looks identical to the original but is dramatically simplified. And you can still have dynamic interactive elements in it.”
Now, this might come as a big boon to mobile VR manufacturers and developers as the success of this technology means that we can see high-end graphic-packed games to be produced on mobile VR platforms which are currently only available on PC-based VR headsets.
The tools for the implementing the Seurat tech has already been made available to developers as it is already available to Unity, Unreal Engine, and Maya and is most likely to roll out later this year.
While working in collaboration with ILMxLAB, Google has already demoed the use of Seurat Tech used in rendering movie scenes that make use of high processing power. Check what the makers of the film have to say in the video below regarding the use of Google’s Seurat Tech.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=cPQum_be9wk
Great move by Google in getting high-end video quality to affordable mobile VR headsets
this looks promising after reading but I need to experience it to feel its actual difference. It would have been great if they have included a with and without difference video.