Auf dem Mobile World Congress 2018 stellt das Start-up Varjo sein Headset mit Bionic Display aus. Nun schieben die Finnen eine Ankündigung hinterher, die aufhorchen lässt. Denn das VR-Headset mit hochauflösendem Display im Fokus-Bereich soll auch Augmented Reality beherrschen und damit AR und VR als Lösung aus einer Hand zusammenführen.
Varjo Bionic-Display-Headset soll AR und VR vereinen
Bisher sind die Welten streng getrennt: Auf der einen Seite gibt es die bekannten VR Headsets, auf der anderen AR-Brillen wie die HoloLens, Meta 2 und irgendwann in diesem Jahr die Magic Leap One. Varjo will mit seiner Hardware nun beide Nutzungsarten ermöglichen und verwendet dazu die Fähigkeiten eines speziellen Prozessors von Socionext, der auf die Verarbeitung von Bildern zugeschnitten ist.
Der CEO Urho Konttori von Varjo sieht in Socionet einen starken und verlässlichen Partner für State-of-the-art Bildverarbeitungslösungen. Mit der Socionext-Milbeaut-Technologie habe das finnische Unternehmen einen Weg gefunden, die echte und digitale Welt auf einem beispiellosen Niveau bezogen auf Realismus, Qualität und Latenz zu vereinen.
Wie das Gesamtpaket dann letztlich aussehen wird, bleibt allerdings noch abzuwarten. Es kann sein, dass Varjo die AR-Fähigkeit gleich in das Headset einbaut oder ein Add-on wie das ZED Mini anbietet. Das Zubehör für Oculus Rift und HTC Vive konnte in ersten Tests überzeugen, vor allem das Sichtfeld ist sehr viel weiter als bei den derzeitigen reinen AR-Brillen. Die ZED mini nimmt über zwei Kameras die reale Umgebung auf und leitet das Bild mit geringer, aber spürbarer Latenz an die VR-Brillen weiter. Prinzipbedingt entspricht die Auflösung des Bildes nicht der Realität.
Hier könnte die Varjo etwas dichter an die Wirklichkeit heranrobben, denn das Unternehmen hat mit seinem Bionic Display eine interessante Lösung verwirklicht. Ein Microdisplay in der Mitte bietet ein hochauflösendes Bild in Full HD, während ein zweiter Bildschirm dahinter gröber auflöst. Sinn des Verfahrens ist es, dass alles im Fokusbereich des Betrachters scharf dargestellt wird – Stichwort Retina. Allerdings gibt es noch ein Problem, denn das Fokus-Display müsste per Eye Tracking den Augenbewegungen des Benutzers folgen. Die Finnen arbeiten zwar daran, haben aber ein solches bewegliches System noch nicht realisiert.
Wer an der Varjo dennoch interessiert ist, kann sich auf der Webseite des Herstellers als möglicher Partner registrieren. Billig wird der Spaß ob mit oder ohne AR indes nicht, das Unternehmen peilt einen Preis zwischen 5000 und 10.000 US-Dollar für Prototypen seines Headsets an.
Varjo, the Finland-based headset manufacturer, today announced the company’s upcoming high resolution VR headset will have AR pass-through capabilities powered by Socionext image signal processors.
Varjo’s headset is basically taking what some consider a shortcut to retina resolution with its ‘bionic display’ – a technique that combines a high resolution microdisplay with a standard VR display to achieve higher detail. Now, on top of the previously mentioned promise of an adaptive microdisplays and eye-tracking (neither were on show at MWC), Varjo is adding AR pass-through to its list of upcoming features.
While the company hasn’t put forth any usecases for its newly announced AR capabilities, or whether the AR function will be offered as an integrated solution or an external add-on, it’s possible Varjo is going for a similar experience to that provided by ZED Mini, a stereo depth-mapping camera which fits on a mount made to attach to VR headsets like the Rift and Vive. When attached, the camera provides stereo pass-through video and real-time depth and environment mapping, turning the headsets into dev kits emulating the capabilities of high-end AR headsets.
Varjo says they selected Socionext’s Milbeaut image signal processor technology because of how complex the level of camera processing is for both pass-through and AR.
Urho Konttori, Founder and CEO of Varjo, comments: “In Socionext, we have found a strong and reliable technology partner for state-of-the-art imaging solutions. With the Socionext Milbeaut technology, Varjo has built a unique way of combining the real and digital worlds in an unprecedented level of realism, quality and latency.”
Mitsugu Naito, Corporate Senior Vice President and head of Imaging Solution Business Unit at Socionext Inc. comments: “Socionext will continue to fully support Varjo’s requirements whilst customizing Milbeaut to their specific needs. We are very pleased to announce both our collaboration and the design win for Milbeaut as part of their new incredible upgrade to the mixed reality experience.”
Das finnische Start-up Varjo zeigt derzeit auf dem MWC (Mobile World Congress) in Barcelona eine neue Virtual-Reality-Brille, die mit einem Bionic Display ausgestattet ist. Damit meint das Unternehmen, dass zwei Displays im Headset verbaut sind, welche nicht nebeneinander, sondern übereinander liegen.
Varjo zeigt Bionic Display Headset
Die VR-Brille von Varjo besteht aus einem Macrodisplay mit einer Auflösung von 1220 x 1080 Pixeln und einem Microdisplay mit einer Auflösung von 1920 x 1080 Pixeln. Das Microdisplay befindet sich vor dem Macrodisplay und erhöht die Auflösung am angebrachten Punkt damit drastisch. Varjo bezeichnet dementsprechend das Macrodisplay als Context Display und das Microdisplay als Focus Display.
Road to VR konnte die Brille auf dem MWC ausprobieren. Das VR-Magazin bestätigt, dass der Screendoor-Effekt im Bereich des Microdisplays komplett eliminiert sei. Der Übergang zwischen den Displays ist wohl als Unschärfe sichtbar, jedoch weniger stark erkennbar, als man vermuten würde. Dennoch ist die Technologie noch lange nicht reif für den Massenmarkt, denn derzeit befindet sich das Focus Display schlicht in der Mitte. Da dies aber nicht zwangsläufig euer Fokus-Punkt ist, muss das Display beweglich werden, damit es per Eye-Tracking eurem Blick folgen kann. Alles Punkte, die Varjo bereits auf dem Zettel hat, aber bisher noch nicht umsetzen konnte. Sollte der Plan aufgehen, wäre Varjo der erste Hersteller mit einer VR-Brille, die eine Art mechanisches Foveated Rendering beherrscht.
Doch die verwendete Technik des VR-Startups ist nicht besonders günstig und dementsprechend sollen vor allem Unternehmen mit dem Produkt angesprochen werden, die mit Virtual Reality Technologie arbeiten wollen, und nicht die Konsumenten. Derzeit peile man einen Preis zwischen 5.000 und 10.000 US-Dollar an und höre stets auf das Feedback der engen Partner, um das Produkt gemeinsam zu verbessern und allen Ansprüchen im professionellen Umfeld gerecht zu werden.
Today’s VR headsets may have relatively high resolutions on paper, but when the pixels are stretched across a wide field of view, the effective angular resolution is far lower than what you might expect from a typical 1080p TV or monitor. Unfortunately, a suitable VR display capable of achieving both a wide field of view and retina resolution isn’t readily available yet. Until then, Finland-based VR startup Varjo is using a combination of macrodisplays and microdisplays to put high density resolution to the center of your view without giving up the wide field of view.
Update (5/30/18): At AWE 2018 this week I had a chance to see Varjo’s latest ‘Beta’ prototype, which demonstrates clear improvements over its predecessor. Compared to the Alpha prototype, the Beta headset is using a higher resolution ‘context display’ (the screen which makes up the peripheral view) at 1,440 x 1,600 per eye, while the ‘focus display’ (which offers retina resolution density at the center of the view) remains at 1,920 x 1080 per eye (60 pixels per degree). The company has also confirmed the headset will support SteamVR Tracking 2.0 (as well as 1.0).
Photo by Road to VR
Notably, the size of the central focus display (the area of high pixel density) is slightly larger on the Beta prototype, and the blending between the two displays has been improved. It isn’t invisible, but it’s smoother and cleaner than before, largely eliminating the appearance of a slightly darkened band around the edge of the focus display (while still showing some glaring and distortion). That makes the transition from the high density portion of the view and the lower density portion less obtrusive. Varjo says they’re now using hardware and software tweaks to smooth out the transition.
The improvements in the blend between the displays have now reached a point where it’s definitely worth putting up with some artifacts around the edges of the focus display for what you get in return: a truly retina resolution area at the center of your view with absolutely no visible pixels or screen door effect. Looking through the focus display reveals sharp text which would otherwise be unreadable with the context display alone. Photogrammetry scenes were at times breathtaking—miniscule textures are revealed which are simply invisible without the level of pixel density provided by the focus display, making the scene look truly photorealistic (when looking through the center of the display).
Looking through the headset’s focus display feels like looking into the future of VR itself—toward a time when the entire field of view will offer retina resolution. But therein lies the big question about Varjo’s inset display approach: other companies are working on larger high resolution displays for VR, and eventually it seems we will achieve retina resolution displays which can cover the entire field of view. So is Varjo’s headset just a stop-gap, or something more? Time will tell, but from what I’ve seen from the company so far, I doubt their inset-display headset will be their only contribution to the VR space.
Photo by Road to VR
The company’s CMO, Jussi Mäkinen, tells me that the Beta prototype has also made strides toward manufacturing readiness. For the headset’s initial launch the company has decided against hardware foveation (moving the focus display to keep it at the center of the gaze). R&D on that front continues (we covered several of the company’s potential approaches here), but early access partners using the headset said they would rather have the fixed-focus display headset in their hands sooner rather than wait longer for a hardware foveated version, Mäkinen told me. That said, the initial fixed-focus display version will include eye-tracking which could be used for foveated rendering, and potentially aid in further smoothing the transition between the focus display and the context display.
Varjo plans to launch the commercial version of the headset later this year, and is exclusively targeting professional/enterprise use-cases, with prices expected between $5,000 and $10,000.
Photo by Road to VR
Original Article (2/26/18): The Varjo headset makes use of what the company calls a ‘context display’ and ‘focus display’. The context display is a large macrodisplay with a 1,080 × 1,200 resolution spread across a 100 degree field of view. Alone, it would look almost identical to the fidelity you’d expect from the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. Varjo’s trick however is putting a microdisplay (the ‘focus display’) with a 1,920 × 1,080 resolution at the center of the headset’s field of view. Although the focus display isn’t tremendously higher resolution than the context display by pixel count, it’s pixels are packed into just 35 degrees horizontally, making it incredibly pixel dense.
Photo by Road to VR
At MWC 2018 I got to check out the Varjo Alpha prototype headset. Inside I saw an extremely high quality image at the center of my field of view which had no noticeable screen door effect. Beyond that 35 degree rectangular area, the resolution drops to the same levels you’d expect from first-gen consumer VR headsets. At the boundary between the focus display and context display, there’s an imperfect transition between the high resolution area and the low resolution area, which looks like a blurry rectangular halo, but it was actually somewhat less jarring than I was expecting.
A rough approximation of how the focus display looks against the context display. Relative fields of view are not to scale. | Photo by Road to VR, based on images courtesy Varjo
The company is using an optical combiner, essentially a two-way mirror, to composite the two displays. Going forward, Varjo hopes to further smooth out the transition between the two displays, the company’s CMO, Jussi Mäkinen, told me, using a combination of both hardware and software refinements.
The difference in quality between the focus display and the context display is truly night and day. Not only does the focus display not show any noticeable screen door effect, the jump in angular resolution turns otherwise blurry smears into perfectly legible letters, as a virtual standard eye chart placed inside the demo experience made clear. Textures benefited immensely from the improved angular resolution, revealing detail that simply isn’t visible on the lower resolution context display.
In the video above, keep your eye on the lower lines of the eye chart to get an idea of the difference in resolution between the focus display and the context display. The resolution jump is less noticeable here since the camera isn’t capturing the headset’s full field of view. You can’t quite see the boundary artifacts in this video.
The Vajor Alpha prototype was tracked with SteamVR Tracking, which the company plans to continue using going forward. Since this was a handheld demo (no strap on the headset yet), I didn’t do a comprehensive test of the headtracking tracking in its prototype form.
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In its current state, even with a static focus display, the benefit of the extra resolution is apparent, and you can almost fool yourself into thinking the entire display is sharp, as long as you consciously try to keep your gaze pointed through the very center of the lens. Of course, course, in practice, your eyes are not always looking perfectly through the center of the lenses, so you won’t always be looking at that super sweet spot of the focus display. And you’ll have to contend with your eye crossing back and forth over the transition point (and back and forth between high res and low res).
Varjo’s long term hope is that they’ll be able to move the focus display in real-time, creating a sort of hardware foveated display, such that the focus display is always at the center of your gaze no matter where you’re looking. That would of course require excellent eye-tracking (and then some) but if they can pull it off, it would make the headset even more compelling because your eye would never have to cross the border between the displays (and always be in that super sweet spot), and your brain might even do a good job of ignoring the border if it’s always a fixed distance from the center of your view.
Achieving an active focus display isn’t likely to be an easy task, though Varjo has patented several potential approaches, mostly involving quickly pivoting the optical combiner about two axes, which we examined recently when we explored the company’s key technology.
Though Varjo CMO Jussi Mäkinen tells me that the company already has prototypes with an active focus display, it’s still up in the air whether or not Varjo’s first commercial product, which is planned for release later this year, will use a static or active focus display.
Photo by Road to VR
Mäkinen told me that Varjo is for now focusing exclusively on enterprise and commercial applications for the headset, which the company initially expects to price between $5,000 and $10,000. He said that the company is actively listening to feedback from its partners about what aspects of the headset are most critical for improvement.
If Varjo can develop an effective and reliable mechanism for active foveation, their headset could be great stopgap for making near retina quality VR headsets with a wide field of view before any single display (per-eye) is ready to ready to deliver such an experience. But we know that both macrodisplay and microdisplay makers are working toward that goal, so where does that leave Varjo once a single display can do it all?
Mäkinen says that Varjo doesn’t just want to make a headset, they want to pioneer the productivity use-case of VR, using a mix of hardware and software. One example he gave was using a totally virtual workspace without the need for physical monitors, something that can really only happen once headset resolution is high enough. He said we can expect more from the company on the software side in the future.
Varjo is a relatively new name to the VR scene, but the company is certainly making a buzz, having quickly raised some $15 million in venture capital touting the promise of delivering a VR headset achieving retina resolution at the center of the field of view. But how exactly does it work? A new graphic shows the key tech behind the company’s headset.
Today there’s primarily two choices when it comes to the kind of displays to use in VR headsets. The first is a traditional display like the kind that you find in your smartphone. The problem with traditional displays today is that the pixels aren’t yet small enough to be truly invisible. Then there’s microdisplays, which have incredible pixel density, but the displays themselves can’t yet be made large enough for very wide field of view in a VR headset.
So until either traditional displays can shrink their pixels drastically, or microdisplays can be easily made much larger, we’re still quite a way from achieving ‘retina resolution’—having such tiny pixels that they’re invisible to the naked eye—in highly immersive VR headsets.
But Varjo hopes to deliver a stopgap which combines the advantages of traditional displays (wide field of view) with those of microdisplays (high pixel density), to deliver a VR headset with retina resolution (at least in a small portion of the overall field of view).
Combining Displays
The underlying concept is illuminated in a recent graphic from the company’s site:
Above you can see (right to left) a diagram of the viewer’s eye, a traditional lens, a moving refraction optic (above), a microdisplay (below), and a traditional display.
As you can see, the refraction optic can move the reflected microdisplay image onto the corresponding section of the traditional display. The idea is that the reflected high-resolution image will always be positioned at the very center of the user’s gaze, with the help of precision eye tracking, while the lower resolution traditional display will fill out the peripheral view where your eye can’t see nearly as much detail. This is very similar to software foveated rendering, except in this case it’s almost like moving the pixels themselves to where they are needed, instead of just rendering in higher quality in a specific area.
This example image from Varjo shows the difference in visual quality between the image from the traditional display and the microdisplay (click to zoom):
Image courtesy Varjo
Moving the High-res Region
The big questions of course: how do you move the refraction optic quickly enough to keep up with the movements of the eye, reliably, and in a space compact enough for a reasonably sized VR headset?
You will be responsible of designing the actuators and motor controls for our mixed reality device. […] You will participate the development of leading edge motor technologies and design novel actuator mechanics to harness the power of custom designed optics, motors and electronics to reach new fronts in miniature mechatronics.
[…]
Responsibilities
Create motor position control algorithms
Design position encoder system
Set performance targets and requirements for motor units
[…]
Plans ‘A’ Through ‘H’
The patent, which refers to the traditional display as the “context display” and the microdisplay as the “focus display,” actually covers a wide range of possible incarnations of the tech using varying methods for combining the microdisplay image with the traditional display image, including the use of waveguides, additional prisms, and other display technology entirely, like projection.
Image courtesy Varjo
Correcting Artifacts
Another big question: what artifacts will the optical combination process introduce to both the reflected micro display image and the image from the traditional display?
The patent also touches on that (a clear indicator that artifacts will indeed need to be contended with); it suggests a number of techniques which could help to eliminate distortions, including masking the region of the traditional display that’s directly behind the reflected display, dimming the seams of the two display regions to try to create a more even transition from one to the other, and even intelligently fitting the transition seams to portions of the rendered scene, connecting them like puzzle pieces in an effort to make the seams less pronounced.
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Image courtesy Varjo
Varjo has laid out a number of interesting methods for pulling off their “bionic display.” Of course, the devil is always in the details—we’ll be looking forward to our first chance to try their latest prototype and see what it really looks like in practice.
Das finnische Start-up Varjo arbeitet an Displays und Techniken zur verbesserten Darstellung des Bildes in der VR. Die Technologie ist in der Lage, im Fokus-Bereich eine 70-fach höhere Auflösung als bisherige VR-Brillen zu erzeugen und sich dadurch nahezu der Sehkraft des menschlichen Auges zu nähern. In der vorletzten Finanzierungsrunde erhielten sie dafür bereits 8,2 Millionen USD. Nach einer erneuten Finanzierungsrunde über 6,7 Millionen Dollar hat das junge Unternehmen ihre Technologie jetzt erstmals auf dem Slush-Start-up-Festival vorgestellt. Zudem kündigten die Finnen erste Alpha-Prototypen an, die bereits Ende des Jahres an Partnerfirmen versendet werden. Außerdem gibt es schon jetzt Pläne für Beta-Prototypen sowie kommerziell erhältliche Modelle.
Varjo – Human-Eye Resolutions: Erste Prototypen und geplante Veröffentlichung Ende 2018
Das junge Unternehmen Varjo existiert erst seit 15 Monaten, konnte sich jedoch in diesem Zeitraums einige hochkarätige Partnerfirmen ins Boot holen und hohe Finanzierungssummen zur Weiterentwicklung ihrer einzigartigen Technologie sichern. Durch eine erhöhte Auflösung für VR-Brillen versuchen die Finnen, die Darstellung in der VR wesentlich realistischer zu gestalten.
Auf dem Start-up-Festival Slush 2017 präsentierten sie erstmals öffentlich ihre Human-Eye-Resolutions-Displays und verkündeten die Kollaboration mit internationalen Unternehmen wie 20th Century Fox, Airbus, Audi, BMW, Technicolor und Volkswagen. Dank der letzten Finanzierungsrunde konnten sie ihr Early-Access-Programm starten und erste Alpha-Prototypen entwickeln, die noch vor Ende 2017 an Partnerfirmen verschickt werden sollen. Sie enthalten Plug-ins für die Spiele-Entwicklungsumgebungen Unity und Unreal. Für Tracking und Controller setzt das Unternehmen auf die Lösungen von Valve/HTC.
Doch damit nicht genug, denn die nächste Serie an Beta-Prototypen ist bereits in Planung. Diese sollen bereits im Q1 2018 fertiggestellt werden und für weitere Unternehmen zugänglich sein, um Feedback und Verbesserungsvorschläge zu liefern. Zur Entwicklung arbeitet Varjo sowohl mit NVIDIA, wie auch mit AMD zusammen, um eine optimierte VR-/MR-Erfahrung zu ermöglichen. Die Ziele bleiben weiterhin ambitioniert, denn verläuft weiterhin alles nach Plan, sollen laut der Pressemeldung bereits 2018 die ersten kommerziell vertriebenen VR-Brillen erscheinen.
Lobende Worte für sein Team findet auch Urho Konttori, der CEO und Gründer von Varjo Technologies: „Ich bin unglaublich stolz auf unser Team, das in der Lage war, in nur 15 Monaten das Konzept in einen ersten technologischen Prototyp umzusetzen. Zusammen mit unseren weltweit führenden Partnern können wir nun unsere Technologie perfektionieren und planen bereits für Ende 2018 die Veröffentlichung der revolutionären VR-/MR-Brillen.“
Varjo setzt bei seiner Lösung auf zwei Displays pro Auge. Ein Micro-Bildschirm, den das Unternehmen Bionic Display nennt, deckt den Fokusbereich ab und besitzt die Full-HD-Auflösung von 1920 x 1080 Pixeln. Dahinter liegt ein „Context-Display“ mit 1080 x 1200 Pixeln. Um den Fokus richtig legen zu können, benötigt man ein Eye-Tracking-System. Das arbeitet laut Hersteller mit 100 hz. Das Field of View gibt Varjo mit 100 Grad für das Content-Display an. Der Fokus liegt in einem Bereich von 35 Grad.
At Slush 2017, Helsinki-based Varjo Technologies today announced an additional investment of $6.7 million from the Finnish business development group Tekes to continue development on their “human eye-resolution” display for VR headsets. The company also announced they’ll be shipping their first Alpha Prototype to a number of development partners before the end of year.
Update (11/30/17): It was stated in a previous version of this article that the Varjo Bionic display was composed of a 1920×1080 display per eye when in fact there are two displays per eye – a single 1080×1200 ‘context’ display that sits in the background and a much smaller 1920×1080 microdisplay that is tracked to your eye. We’ve corrected the article to reflect this.
The $6.7 million from Tekes adds to their recent $8.2m Series A round led by EQT Ventures Fund, announced back in September.
Varjo’s newly announced development partners include 20th Century Fox, Airbus, Audi, BMW and Technicolor, and will help the company optimize their “human eye-resolution” display for further development. The company says its Beta Prototypes will be shipping to new and existing partners during Q1 2018.
image courtesy Varjo
Urho Konttori, CEO and founder of Varjo Technologies says the company plans on launching “a profoundly revolutionary VR/XR headset by the end of 2018.”
The announcement coincides with the company’s first public technology demonstration which happened this week at Slush 2017, the annual Helsinki-based startup conference. Notably, Varjo’s booth got an important visitor as well; Prince William, Duke of Cambridge.
image courtesy Varjo
What makes the company’s ‘Bionic’ display so special is a unique implementation of two displays per eye; a 1080×1200 resolution ‘context’ display that sits in the background, and a much smaller 1920×1080 resolution microdisplay. Since the headset features eye-tracking, the image from smaller display is designed to move in tandem with the eyes natural saccades. This, in effect, makes the perceived resolution much higher than a standard fixed display like those found in Oculus Rift or HTC Vive.
As for positional tracking, Varjo’s Alpha Prototype is tracked by the SteamVR Lighthouse tracking standard.
Varjo is working closely with NVIDIA and AMD “to provide the best possible VR/XR experience for its partners.” Varjo prototypes are also being shipped with both Unreal and Unity plugins to enable content creation.
“I’m incredibly proud of the team that took a proof of concept into a custom-built technology prototype in just a few short months,” said Konttor. “Together with our world-leading partners, we are now perfecting the technology and plan to launch a profoundly revolutionary VR/XR headset by the end of 2018.”
We’ll be following Varjo as it makes inroads to the enterprise sector with its VR headset.
Varjo, a Finnish company that’s working on an ultra high-fidelity mixed reality headset, has raised an $8.2 million series A round to propel it forward as it works toward the launch of its first developer kits.
EQT Ventures led the round, with participation from Lifeline Ventures, the Venture Reality Fund, Presence Capital, and others. The funds will be used to build out the Varjo team, expand its marketing program, and continue funding development of its headset.
“Simply put, we were looking to fund our product R&D and a few custom components that must be built to reach crucial improvements in the device quality,” Varjo CEO Urho Konttori said in an email to VentureBeat.
Varjo’s headset is designed to be roughly the size and shape of a traditional virtual reality headset but to provide human-eye resolution for a higher quality image. In addition, the system promises to let users view the world around them by moving a small, high-resolution display around a wearer’s field of view in time with their eye movements. Doing so tricks the brain into thinking that it’s seeing a much higher-resolution image.
If Varjo can pull this off, the headset should provide users with a higher quality viewing experience than is currently available from headsets without this technology.
According to Konttori, progress on the developer edition of the headset is continuing as planned, and the company expects to make an announcement about its progress at the Slush conference in Helsinki next month.
Varjo Technologies, a Helsinki-based startup known for its ‘human eye-resolution’ display intended for VR headets, today announced it’s closed an $8.2M Series A funding round that aims to support the upcoming launch of Varjo-branded enterprise VR/AR/XR products.
The Series A was lead by European venture capital fund EQT Ventures Fund, followed by Lifeline Ventures Fund III, The Venture Reality Fund, private investor John Lindfors, Foobar Technologies, Presence Capital Fund I, Bragiel Bros I, and Sisu Game Ventures.
With its eye on producing its own enterprise-facing headsets housing what Varjo calls a ‘Bionic’ display, the company says a Varjo-branded VR/AR/XR products will begin shipping to professional users in late Q4, 2017.
comparison showing standard VR headset display next to Varjo’s 20/20 prototype, image courtesy Varjo
“Varjo is fast growing from a startup to a best-in-class global supplier of VR/AR headsets,” said Urho Konttori, CEO and founder of Varjo Technologies. “We are now moving past research into the development stage and are so glad to achieve this in collaboration with EQT Ventures. We clicked the moment we met with them – the team literally started on go-to-market strategy during our first meeting. With EQT Ventures, we not only have a VC, but a true partner in growth.”
Varjo calls their prototype “20|20”, saying that it’s specifically designed for professional users and with resolutions more than 70 times beyond any currently shipping or announced head-mounted display.
Varjo’s prototype hiding inside of an Oculus Rift, image courtesy Ubergizmo
Tech Crunchgot a hands-on with an early demo of Varjoi’s tech back in June, which packed a pair of high-resolution Sony MicroOLED displays measuring 0.7 inches diagonally, boasting 3,000 pixels per inch (PPI). As a significant jump from Oculus Rift of HTC Vive‘s 447-461 PPI, the chief complaint with these microdisplays is they typically don’t provide an acceptable field of view (FOV) for the purposes of VR, but Varjo says their upcoming VR headset will ultimately deliver an 100 degree FOV, just shy of the Rift or Vive’s 110 degree FOV.
The company is so far staying mum on any other specifics surrounding their headset.
Varjo Technologies, a Helsinki-based startup now out of stealth, recently demonstrated what it calls the world’s first human eye-resolution headmounted display. Intended for its own swath of Varjo-branded headsets, the new display configuration promises “unprecedented resolution of VR and AR content limited only by the perception of the human eye itself.”
According to a hands-on by Tech Crunch, the headset packs a pair of high-resolution Sony MicroOLED displays measuring 0.7 inches diagonally that boast 3,000 pixels per inch (PPI)—a significant jump from Oculus Rift of HTC Vive’s 447-461 PPI. Microdisplays don’t typically provide an acceptable field of view (FOV) for the purposes of VR, but Varjo is combining a few methods to provide the pixel-dense picture to an entire 100 degree FOV.
As reported by Tech Crunch, these microdisplays “fill up about a 20-degree field of view which is reflected off of mirrors in the headset while the wider scene is displayed on a more normal resolution display in the background.”
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image courtesy Ubergizmo
image courtesy Ubergizmo
image courtesy Ubergizmo
Codenamed 20|20, Varjo (meaning ‘shadow’ in Finnish) built their early prototype inside of a hacked Oculus Rift by a team of optical scientists, creatives and developers who formerly occupied top positions at Microsoft, Nokia, Intel, Nvidia and Rovio.
Billed as a “bionic display,” the prototype shown to Tech Crunch featured a “fixed focus display” that was set at the center point of the users vision, but the company says its currently building systems that will dynamically adjust the microdisplay-reflected image to your gaze thanks to the future addition of integrated eye-tracking technology.
For now, the headset is destined for professional users, as the technology will no doubt require a top-in-class computer due to the graphical constraints of delivering rendered images that can make use of the display’s high pixel density. It’s also difficult to say how a hardware-based solution will stand up to everyday use since it requires lenses to physically move every time your eye shifts position.
Comparative matrix
Effective resolution
Field of view
Varjo 20|20
70 MP
100°
Oculus, Vive
1.2 MP
100°
VR in 5 years *
16 MP
140°
HoloLens
1 MP
32°
ODG R9
2 MP
50°
Meta II
1.8 MP
100°
* Prediction 2016 by Oculus Chief Scientist Michael Abrash at Oculus Connect 3
“Varjo’s patented display innovation pushes VR technology 10 years ahead of the current state of-the-art, where people can experience unprecedented resolution of VR and AR content limited only by the perception of the human eye itself,” said Urho Konttori, CEO and founder of Varjo Technologies. “This technology, along with Varjo VST, jump-starts the immersive computing age overnight – VR is no longer a curiosity, but now can be a professional tool for all industries.”
The high resolution display technology will be shipping in Varjo-branded products specifically for professional users and applications starting in late Q4, 2017.
Wie das Gesamtpaket dann letztlich aussehen wird, bleibt allerdings noch abzuwarten. Es kann sein, dass Varjo die AR-Fähigkeit gleich in das Headset einbaut oder ein Add-on wie das ZED Mini anbietet. Das Zubehör für Oculus Rift und HTC Vive konnte in ersten Tests überzeugen, vor allem das Sichtfeld ist sehr viel weiter als bei den derzeitigen reinen AR-Brillen. Die ZED mini nimmt über zwei Kameras die reale Umgebung auf und leitet das Bild mit geringer, aber spürbarer Latenz an die VR-Brillen weiter. Prinzipbedingt entspricht die Auflösung des Bildes nicht der Realität.
Hier könnte die Varjo etwas dichter an die Wirklichkeit heranrobben, denn das Unternehmen hat mit seinem Bionic Display eine interessante Lösung verwirklicht. Ein Microdisplay in der Mitte bietet ein hochauflösendes Bild in Full HD, während ein zweiter Bildschirm dahinter gröber auflöst. Sinn des Verfahrens ist es, dass alles im Fokusbereich des Betrachters scharf dargestellt wird – Stichwort Retina. Allerdings gibt es noch ein Problem, denn das Fokus-Display müsste per Eye Tracking den Augenbewegungen des Benutzers folgen. Die Finnen arbeiten zwar daran, haben aber ein solches bewegliches System noch nicht realisiert.
