Normal photography just isn’t good enough to capture the world for virtual reality. 360° videos are nice and all, but they’re flat and lifeless compared to a proper 3D environment. Light field cameras are the next step for real-world VR, allowing light to be recorded in a more nuanced way. If you want to see the results, Google’s created a VR experience using light fields and made it available on Steam.
As Google VR senior researcher Paul Debevec explains, light fields are simply a better way of doing things when it comes to making VR content:
Light fields are a set of advanced capture, stitching, and rendering algorithms. Much more work needs to be done, but they create still captures that give you an extremely high-quality sense of presence by producing motion parallax and extremely realistic textures and lighting
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With light fields, nearby objects seem near to you — as you move your head, they appear to shift a lot. Far-away objects shift less and light reflects off objects differently, so you get a strong cue that you’re in a 3D space.
Unsurprisingly, showing the benefits of light field is difficult using still images alone. While a video doesn’t hold a candle to a VR headset, the clip below does a decent job of getting the message across.
The good news is, if you own a HTC Vive, Oculus Rift or a Mixed Reality unit, you can try Google’s light field VR demo right now via Steam. The system requirements are on the high side, but that’s to be expected for VR.
[referenced url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2015/11/lytros-immerge-system-could-capture-the-most-convincing-vr-video-yet/” thumb=”https://gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/lytroreview1.jpg” title=”Lytro Light-Field Camera Review: I Have Seen The Light… Field” excerpt=”Imagine if you could boot a camera in a matter of milliseconds and take a shot that you can refocus after the fact? That’s the brilliance of Lytro, and the best part is that it’s already here.”]
What’s going to slow down adoption of light field is the cost. Google modified a GoPro Odyssey Jump, placed it on a rotating mount and stuffed it with 16 LF cameras. I’m sure the price will come down over time, but for now, don’t expect oodles of these experiences.
[Google, via The Verge]