While Google’s I/O conference has plenty of interesting news for consumers, the majority of it is geared towards developers, helping them build, create and maximise the potential for their future or current projects. In terms of virtual reality (VR) the company aims to increase the graphical fidelity of mobile experiences with a project called Seurat.
Google Seurat – named after the French painter – is a way of processing complex scenes that could only be handled by a desktop PC, and making it possible for a mobile device to render it, all in real-time.
To achieve this Andre Doronichev, director of product management at Daydream explained: “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.”
Doronichev then went on to showcase a project Google made in collaboration with ILMxLAB, that highlighted how Seurat could even be used for projects like a movie scene, which require even more processing power. In the video below ILMxLab’s executive creative director John Gaeta said: “[Seurat] potentially opens the door to cinematic realism in VR.”
Seurat already supports Unreal Engine, Unity and Maya, and Google is testing the tool with a select group of partners currently, prior to rolling it out later this year.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Google I/O, reporting back with all the latest updates.