To succeed the imposing Oculus headsets, Facebook is working on ultra-light virtual reality glasses. A real technological feat achieved thanks to a holographic lens.
It is part of the virtual conference Siggraph that Facebook unveiled his latest work in terms of virtual reality . The objective is clear: gradually abandon the imposing Oculus helmets to move to models much closer to classic glasses.
The Facebook Reality Labs teams presented a frame, certainly impressive, but much more practical than what is currently seen in the virtual reality sector. As proof, these glasses weigh about 18 grams. It’s 30 times less than an Oculus helmet! And in its presentation , Facebook announces that it will be possible, eventually, to drop below 7 grams.
9mm thick lens
To achieve such a degree of miniaturization, Facebook has abandoned the usual refractive lenses for a holographic lens , coupled with optical folding based on polarization. It is a thin, flat film to achieve a thickness of less than 9 mm while supporting a field of vision comparable to current consumer virtual reality products. To better visualize the interest of this technology, Facebook gives the example of animations in museums or simply the little hologram placed on bank cards.
On the prototype presented Monday with a Need For Speed type car simulation , we can see that the screen currently only displays green. The reason ? The plate behaves like a filter and does not yet return the entire color spectrum . The rest of the work therefore focuses on the display of colors , but also the possibility of extending the field of vision.