Seamless mixing of virtual & real-world objects in VR & AR

Project Information

LightField

Grant agreement ID: 855451

DOI

10.3030/855451

Project closed

EC signature date 28 January 2019

Start date 1 February 2019

End date 31 May 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

CREAL SA
Switzerland

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LightField (Seamless mixing of virtual & real-world objects in VR & AR)

Reporting period: 2019-02-01 to 2019-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Current virtual or augmented reality headsets are not widely accepted, because they cause discomfort, eye-strain and physical pain to the majority of users. Why? The human eye needs to change focus between objects in different distances and perceives depth that way. This is impossible in devices based on flat screens/waveguides. The mismatch between binocular depth and focus causes eye-strain, pain, and nausea.

Our patented breakthrough technology projects light-field where each eye can focus naturally on virtual objects in different distances, experiencing their realistic blur and micro-parallax without eye-strain and nausea. It works without eye-tracking and is potentially scalable to a form-factor small enough to be integrated into the next generation comfortable augmented and virtual reality headsets and future smart glasses.

VR/AR headsets and smart glasses have the potential to assist “deskless” professionals and eventually everyone in many areas from cooking to neurosurgery. Light-field display is a critical component for smart glasses, which will enable to make them small and pleasant to wear throughout the day, enabling many new applications and obviating the need for screens as we know them.

This feasibility study report containing the go-to-market strategy and the pricing approach, the partner network growth strategy and cost calculations of our solution has the objective to validate the commercial/market feasibility and economic/financial feasibility of the Light-Field technology for VR/AR headsets.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

This feasibility study covers two subjects:
Validation of commercial/market feasibility of Light-Field:
- Market feasibility study for high-end and mid-range Light-Field projectors for VR/AR with the objective of the market analysis of 2-3 key segments, their sizes and the fitting go-to-market strategy;
- Identification of the additional problems in current VR goggles in key application areas: design preview, product presentations, games and training A list of use cases where our solution will improve the UX of existing products;
- Identification of VR/AR headset OEMs for the integration of our solution into their products - 5+ new qualified leads;
- Identification of the appropriate low volume production partners with the objective to obtain price estimation or offer from 2-3 production companies in Europe or Asia;
Validation of economic/financial feasibility of Light-Field:
- Estimate BOM for small Light-Field projector for smart glasses Analysis of the costs, challenges and other considerations for mass production for industrial and other purposes;
- Develop the pricing approach for small Light-Field components A detailed volume-based pricing strategy for the headset OEMs.

To assess the market feasibility of our patented light-field technology, this study reviews and evaluates existing applications of VR/AR in enterprise and consumer markets and identifies where current technologies are the most limiting factor. Based on these findings, the study identifies huge market potential for our light-field display technology in use cases where users interact with virtual information (objects) at close distances and for a long time, such as VR/AR gaming, design preview, training and remote assistance and product presentation. Light-field technology brings a unique selling point and a clear consumer added value to these applications with respect to the current solutions, i.e. absence of the visual conflicts (vergence-accommodation conflict) and extended use time.

Bringing complete VR/AR light-field headset solution to the market would require considerable resources, therefore, we concluded that our best go to market strategy is in offering our light-field display technology to current VR/AR manufactures as a core component for smaller volumes (industrial and enterprise markets) and through licensing for larger volumes (consumer market) is as a more credible business model. We, therefore, identified the most promising partners to integrate our technology into their headsets, which are HTC, vrNgineers, Sony, Fove, and Varjo and described strategies to approach them. We have also identified manufacturing partners for low volume production of required components.

To asses the production feasibility, we performed a detailed analysis of the manufacturing costs of light-field displays for different production volumes from prototyping to mass-market, confirming production cost of only $99 (VR) and $132 (AR) per display (mass-production), which is perfectly acceptable for mass-market consumer devices. We presented a comprehensive overview of challenges for different production steps for high volume manufacturing. Finally, we analyzed how to determine the price of our devices for our customers and integration partners.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Through discussions with trustworthy 3rd party technology reviewers aware of the current state of the technology including research and development not yet publicly presented, we have established that our technology and prototype at its current level of readiness already provide significantly better light-field than anything the reviewers are aware of in comparable form factor and cost range. Through a patent landscape search, we have also established, that no one is pursuing the same technological approach. Hence, we are confident we have already moved significantly ahead of the current state of the art.

Market feasibility study carried out in this project and presented in this report also confirmed demand for our light-field technology, verified its clear consumer benefits and identified the best go to market strategy, potential integration partners and best potential customers.

Therefore, we can conclude that proceeding with our project has high potential to create immense added value by bringing to market a technology, which will break open a completely new ways users will consume digital content. Should our market entry be successful, light-field technology will completely redefine how consumers interact with the digital world in the decade to come, breaking the rule of flat screens as a primary visual output device, rendering many of these screens and related pointer devices obsolete. Should the project be truly successful, it will put Europe into the forefront of the new development trend and into the role of a standard setter for the new class of digital products, a position comparable to the one Europe enjoyed during the introduction of the original GSM standard – bringing innumerable growth opportunities for European technological companies.

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