The Best AR Technology
The hope of living life with a practical AR headset has peak the curiosity of consumers since before the release of Google Glass. But it we quickly faced the reality that we were still years away from something that looked practical, and included the functionality that only shows up in the movies.
Nvidia just showcased some new AR tech that is getting us that much closer to the AR Glasses we’d all agree achieves our vision of true Augmented Reality.
NVIDIA Prescription AR Technology
At the SIGGRAPH conference that is being held in Los Angeles this week, a conference centered on computer graphics, NVIDIA will demo their new “Prescription AR” Glasses. The glasses will be able to adjust to the wearers optimal eye-site and recreate their prescription with the display on the headset.
Current generation AR devices don’t include the wearers Glasses Prescriptions. For a wearer to have their corrective vision prescription applied while using AR headsets, they either need to be wearing contact lenses or their regular glasses. Since not everyone that needs prescription lenses wears contact lenses, this new technology from Nvidia will be a welcomed and inclusive solution.
The Prescription AR Glasses from Nvidia are able to achieve the same result as prescription glasses would as well as present the wearer with an Augmented Reality overlay. The benefits of integrating both the display and the corrective vision prescription are many. A clear benefit to the manufacturer of this headset is a reduction in the total number of components. And the benefit that is obvious to the wearer is the elimination of the need to wear their normal glasses on top of the AR Glasses.
The Prescription AR glasses leverage deep learning in real time. This deep learning is used to determine the best resolution and location to display the image. This allows for wearers to have their unique vision needs met with the same hardware.
NVIDIA Foveated AR Technology
Another highly anticipated feature that Nvidia will be demonstrating at SIGGRAPH is Foveated AR. The Foveated AR technology combines gaze tracking with image rendering. This enables optimization of graphics processing to avoid unnecessary rendering. Pixels that are not being focused on by the wearer are presented in a much lower resolution. This type of image presentation closely reflects the way the eye captures the world. As a result, the optimization is achieved without any noticeable compromise in image quality.
The glasses are leveraging two different displays per eye. One display is a high resolution display presents the image where the wearer is looking. The second display is lower resolution and fill out the periphery of the weavers view. The wearer won’t notice there are two displays, but the effect is a more naturally looking image that is presented.
The higher resolution display only presents an image on a small area. This is because the actual area that the human eye will notice the high resolution is very small.
“If you have a certain amount of graphics horsepower that’s going to be applied to an image, you want to put it where you actually see it,” Greg Estes, Nvidia’s VP of corporate marketing
