Light field display technology has always been a mysterious field. If Magic Leap hadn't kept spreading the news of high financing in the past few years, not so many people would have paid attention to this unpopular technology and the value behind it. According to the official description of Magic Leap in digital light field, photons of Magic Leap One light field generate digital light with different depths, which are seamlessly blended with natural light, thus superimposing realistic virtual objects into the real world. This advanced technology enables our brains to process digital objects as naturally as real-world objects, and at the same time, it is suitable for long-term use.
In order to know more about the technical principle behind it, Bian Xiao interviewed Qin Zheng, CEO of Ant Vision Technology. At the press conference of 20 14, AntVision announced a patent of light field display technology-holographic light field display technology, which was applied on 20 12. The latter also introduced the light field display technology displayed by Magic Leap, its development status and future application prospect to Bian Xiao.
Light field display: mysterious black technology worth $65.438+90 million.
Since its establishment six years ago, Magic Leap has completed more than $654.38+09 billion in financing. What makes Silicon Valley investment tycoons and global technology giants chase crazily is the light field display reality technology called the next generation display platform.
According to Qin Zheng, the traditional display technology is the reverse reduction of film technology, and the computer records the three-dimensional environment. This display technology can only display images on two-dimensional plane (projector, projector, monitor); Later, stereoscopic photography and 3D display technology were invented. However, the display itself is still optically flat. Although the stereoscopic (3D) effect can be felt, it does not really have the same stereoscopic effect and depth as the real environment.
The digital light field display technology adopted by Magic Leap has the same principle as the holographic light field display technology displayed by Ant Vision 20 14. In order to make the display interface itself have depth and stereoscopic effect, it is necessary to collect natural light completely and truly, and then restore it with digital light field display technology. The light field camera collects natural light and records the signal containing the information of the light field, and the light field display restores the image containing the information of the light field, which is either collected by the light field camera or a digital light field signal generated by light simulation through computer graphics technology. Through the special optical display structure (micro-projection array, micro-lens array, micro-mirror array and other specific schemes), each beam of light is projected to a predetermined direction to simulate real natural light. So as to realize a virtual image with a real depth of field effect.
The stereoscopic effect and depth of field effect of the light field technology displayed at the conference of Ant Vision 20 14.
Natural light is completely continuous, but in light field display, light is thick and thin, just like in plane display, the smallest unit of display is pixel (also called pixel). In light field display, AntVision once defined the smallest display unit as a meta beam in the patent of 20 12.
Figure 1
Figure 2
In the technical scheme of Magic leap, the way to generate meta-beams is mainly to project meta-beams in different directions at different times through a miniature optical fiber projector (Figure 1). Countless elementary beams enter the human eye from the outside, and then form countless intersections near the retina of the human eye, which is the intuitive embodiment of the "field" of the light field (each thin line in Figure 2 represents a elementary beam). Just like natural light in people's eyes, it will form countless intersections. The human eye selectively images different focal points, so that people can perceive the depth of the image and obtain complete spatial information. This depth of field makes the display image more realistic, and can reduce dizziness, which is suitable for wearing for a long time.
In short, the light field display is aimed at the light that completely and truly simulates the natural environment. The development of this technology is in line with the ultimate goal of VR/AR-to ensure that the wearer can watch it permanently and naturally, and to combine digital technology with people's daily lives.
Although the light field technology has been realized, it is more difficult to make products than to ascend to heaven.
According to the patent documents given by Ant Vision, they applied for the patent of light field display technology in 20 12, even two years earlier than Magic Leap, but they have never introduced products using light field technology. In this regard, Qin Zheng said that although he had mastered the relevant technology very early, it would take a lot of manpower and material resources to turn such a complex light field technology into a product, which a startup company like Ant Vision could not afford.
As early as 20 12, Qin Zheng began to study light field technology when he was at school. On April 20 12, the company successfully applied for a patent and was established in April 20 14. Qin Zheng has made four versions of the light field display technology prototype.
However, when he took this technology and prototype to fight for the financing of 20 13 venture, the problem appeared, and the market knew little about this product. At that time, when the light field display technology was not popularized in AR, everyone was skeptical, and the project was naturally difficult to get the favor of capital.
20 14 When Ant Vision successfully raised funds with VR technology, Qin Zheng dreamed of how to put the light field technology to the ground and make the whole industry glow. But at this time, the sense of reality began to stand out: Qin Zheng estimated that this technology needs at least 500 million R&D funds to land, and only chip technology needs to integrate more than ten kinds of light field processing chips, position tracking chips and display driver chips. Not only that, because the industry has not yet formed large-scale production, it is as difficult as small ants to build a production line to connect upstream and downstream products.
Qin Zheng said that although people constantly questioned that Magic leap had a huge amount of financing and no products came out, we knew that it was more reasonable for Magic Leap to launch its first product after six years' brewing compared with the necessary cost and time required for the products to land. We are very happy to see that star startups have put this technology to the ground, enriching the upstream and downstream industrial chains, and also giving us hope to put this technology to the ground in the future.
In addition, Tan Zheng doesn't quite agree with the statement that the existing AR market structure will be completely subverted when Magic Leap comes out. In his view, although light field technology can solve the depth of field problem of display effect, at this stage of AR development, there are still three basic problems to be solved: Is the viewing angle large enough? Is it small enough? Is the price reliable?
Even the "tall" light field technology can't avoid these three problems. Judging from the product renderings currently displayed, Magic leap One's products are not very large in perspective (according to the description of the experiencer, they should be the size of half-open hands); Foreign media broke the news that the price of this product is around 2000 dollars. Although it is much cheaper than Microsoft's Hololens, it is still not the price that can be popularized in the consumer market. No matter how good the light field technology is, if these three core problems cannot be solved, the comprehensive experience of the product will not be very good.
Qin Zheng said that in the current development stage of AR, it is more important to find the optimal solution of FOV (field of view), volume and price as soon as possible compared with the application of expensive light field technology. A few days ago, Ant Vision announced that it would show a brand-new AR glasses Ant Vision Mix at CES. Qin Zheng said that this product has made some technical breakthroughs in view of the pain points in these industries, achieved a large viewing angle of over 90 degrees on the basis of small size, and built-in self-polishing machine, which can be applied to display.
Previously, the analysis company Digi-Capital predicted that by 2020, the AR market (retail, AR hardware, e-commerce, movies/TV series, games, etc. ) will reach $654.38+02 billion. From the layout of AR by giant companies such as Google and Apple to the new products of Magic Leap, AR will set off a new wave in the next few years.
And what impact will Magic Leap's light field technology bring to AR and even the entire computing industry? Can light field become the next generation display technology? 20 18 we will wait and see.