Facebook is looking to vibrate the screen door out of VR

[rcmaehl]

Summary

Facebook and Oculus are looking into rapidly shifting displays to blur pixels together to allow the screen door effect to be removed from even low end VR headsets.

 

Media

 

Quotes

Quote

Facebook Reality Labs and the University of Arizona published new work exploring the use of high-speed...display shifting to reduce the... screen-door-effect (SDE) of immersive displays. SDE is caused by unlit spaces between pixels leading to the immersion-reducing appearance of a ‘screen door’ between the viewer and the virtual world. The researchers experiment with rapidly and minutely shifting the entire display to cause the display’s pixels to fill in the gaps. SDE has been one the leading visual artifacts in modern VR headsets since the introduction of the Rift. Some headsets choose a smaller field of view which reduces the apparent visibility of SDE. Other headsets use a diffuser film on the display to help blend the light from the pixels into the unlit spaces between them. Another proposal is to rapidly and minutely shift the display such that nearby pixels fill in the unlit gaps. It’s been demonstrated with other display technologies that moving a point of light...quickly enough can create the appearance of a stable image. The researchers designed a...platform with two... actuators which... shift the display in a circular motion at 120Hz. The researchers call this circular path ‘Non-redundancy’ mode. They also smartly utilized a 480Hz display which allowed them to experiment with a more complex pixel shifting path which they called ‘Redundancy’ mode. This approach aimed to not only fill in the gaps between the pixels with some additional overlap, but split the displayed frame into four sub-frames which are each uniquely shifted and displayed to account for the pixel movement. The ‘Non-redundancy’ mode clearly reduced the SDE while apparently retaining equal sharpness. Impressively, the ‘Redundancy’ mode not only reduced SDE, but even appears to noticeably sharpen the image. While the brute force approach of defeating SDE with ultra high pixel density displays will likely come to fruition, a mechanical approach to SDE reduction could allow headset makers to ‘get more for less’.

 

My thoughts

I'm not surprised to see this technology implemented in VR headsets, it's been used in projectors for a few years now (and even mentioned in one of the latest LTT videos). Regardless, it'll be an interesting balancing act as the g-forces of the display shifting will need to be counteracted.... or at least marketed as a non-optional face massager. We may see even cheaper VR headsets in the future using low res displays but using this tech to have good clarity, or resolution, without a high pixel resolution.

 

Sources

Road to VR (quote source)

Facebook Research

[Senzelian]

4 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

as the g-forces of the display shifting will need to be counteracted

Should be very similar to cameras with pixel-shifting. After all you hold those up to your eyes too and I have never heard anyone complain about vibrations or something similar.

 

Full frame sensors and VR displays should even be of similar size and weight.

[rcmaehl]

13 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

Should be very similar to cameras with pixel-shifting. After all you hold those up to your eyes too and I have never heard anyone complain about vibrations or something similar.

 

Full frame sensors and VR displays should even be of similar size and weight.

I thought pixel shift cameras used natural vibrations from the shooter, wind, et al for this, not motors?

[Senzelian]

5 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

I thought pixel shift cameras used natural vibrations from the shooter, wind, etc for this, not motors?

I can't imagine that. Afaik they shift the sensor one pixel in each direction and take 4 individual photos while doing so. They need to control the movement somehow, so I'd imagine there's a mechanism there to control it. The natural movement of the shooter might not move the sensor in the desired direction.

[StDragon]

Is this proposed to be attached to the LCD panel itself, or a mirror? Given that LCD panels are sandwiched together, wouldn't all that high-frequency vibration shorten the life of them?

[rcmaehl]

1 minute ago, StDragon said:

Is this proposed to be attached to the LCD panel itself, or a mirror? Given that LCD panels are sandwiched together, wouldn't all that high-frequency vibration shorten the life of them?

I believe the panel itself:
 

 

[Doobeedoo]

Ugm FB things aside, for VR I'd expect 120Hz OLED 4K minimum still need good res and rr too.

[TetraSky]

I'm barely even noticing any "screen door" on my Quest 2, if anything, it looks great to me. Wouldn't this be moot as we increase the resolution?

 

I guess this could enable lower res VR... But I'm not sure how I would feel about blurred vibrating screen right in front of my eyes. Fully expect to feel sick.

[WaggishOhio383]

29 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

I'm barely even noticing any "screen door" on my Quest 2, if anything, it looks great to me.

Same here. I'm honestly surprised by how good the display on it looks. It's way better than my friend's Vive, which makes everything look kinda pixelated.

[Alex Atkin UK]

3 hours ago, WaggishOhio383 said:

Same here. I'm honestly surprised by how good the display on it looks. It's way better than my friend's Vive, which makes everything look kinda pixelated.

I suppose it might be cheaper than making good lenses.   Because its half the panel makeup, half how the lens itself blurs the image that reduces SDE.

For example PSVR works remarkably well considering its resolution.  Ultimately I don't see how making the image more blurry is going to feel better, like 4K TVs what makes things feel seamless is the resolution and frame rate.


Forza Horizon 4 feels better at 120fps, but it looks more realistic at 4K.  You really need the combination of resolution and frame rate and VR even moreso.  (except you also have field of view there too)

[CephDigital]

19 hours ago, rcmaehl said:

I thought pixel shift cameras used natural vibrations from the shooter, wind, et al for this, not motors?

Why does this give me the image of someone in nature with a chonky DLSR, taking a photo and then violently shaking the camera?

[jinxter]

hey this is pretty much MECHANICAL ANTI-ALIASING. they could probably just turn-off anti-aliasing to get some extra FPS and rely on this too.