Each one of us at some time of their lives, dropped on their knees, prayed, and cried for a pair of sunglasses that would serve as a decent display as well. This dream that we had years ago saw light with amazing new pieces of tech being unveiled such as the Oculus Rift, and Google Glass. The Oculus Rift however is too big and heavy, but the display is decent, and the Google Glass¢â‚¬â„¢ display doesn¢â‚¬â„¢t satisfy our gaming needs!
Luckily for us Nvidia¢â‚¬â„¢s graphics processing specialists Douglas Lanman and David Luebke announced at the SIGGRAPH conference a new head mounted display that would rest itself just between the light, practical Google Glass and the vibrant display of the Oculus Rift. Nvidia developed a prototype of their Near-Eye Field head mounted display by simply adding a micro lens over a high resolution display, this creates a light field in front of the eyes. The viewer is thus able to refocus at multiple depths into the scene. The prototype was actually made of two Sony ECX332A OLED micro-displays with a pixel density of about 2100 ppi, attached to a frame that resembles a pair of glasses. This technology does so much more than just gives you a good display on a light weight and sleek frame, it also gives you a wide field of view that can reach an angle over 70 degrees! Nvidia¢â‚¬â„¢s prototype also answers the question that has been haunting Google Glass anticipators ¢â‚¬Å“What if someone wore prescription glasses?¢â‚¬ well Nvidia¢â‚¬â„¢s new head mounted display can adjust itself to fit any eye solely from the software, moreover it doesn¢â‚¬â„¢t need any kind of eye-tracking to adjust the focus on the flat display.
Nvidia has also made a film based prototype:
“Practical applications will require two refinements in semiconductor manufacturing: higher-resolution and larger-format micro displays, increasing image sharpness and the field of view, respectively. We emulate such high-resolution micro displays using back lit 3.75 x 3.75 cm color films, developed using a light valve technology (LVT) film recorder at 120 pixels per Millimeter. For these film-based prototypes, we estimate a spatial resolution of 534 x 534 pixels and a field of view of 67 x 67 Degrees.”
So now we can fairly say that Nvidia has joined Google and OculusVR in the race for the best head mounted display, and it¢â‚¬â„¢s safe to say that Nvidia¢â‚¬â„¢s approach is closer to the Oculus Rift since it will probably be used for gaming purposes.