Digital Kingdom

After the headset was strapped, I pressed the switch and the field of vision changed.

The environment of the laboratory suddenly disappeared, and Zhao Ziming was in a vast stadium with no one around, only a piece of green grass, as if there was a breeze, and even the swaying of the grass could be seen.

Zhao Ziming moved his angle of view back and forth, there was not much change, it was still the scene before him.

Although it is very realistic, it is slightly monotonous. Zhao Ziming felt it carefully, and he could still distinguish the difference between virtual and reality.

Just when the glasses were about to be removed, a huge whale suddenly appeared on the stadium, slapped the waves, and rose into the sky. The sky was full of waves and splashes. The lifelike whales brought a huge visual impact.

Zhao Ziming was shocked, but he was delighted. Only this kind of technology is worth his investment.

The previous inspections of Magic Feiyue Company were very impressive, but this time I finally saw the core advantages.

Chu Wensheng smiled and said with a slightly shocked expression after Zhao Ziming removed his headset.

"This head-mounted display uses a "compound-eye optical technology", which simulates the compound eyes of insects and directly performs array-type light field projection, which is the same technical principle as ML.

But for this technical direction, we have applied for an international patent as early as March 2012, and we are not afraid of ML competition."

"Hmm"

Zhao Ziming nodded in satisfaction. Chu Wensheng dared to lay out at both ends of the light field. He still had some strength. It was not pure arrogance, or just for scientific research.

Chu Wensheng continued,

"We used a series of microlens arrays with a small focal length of 3.3 mm. This focal length is also the smallest focal length that the human eye can recognize. The glasses are only 10 mm thick. We use it to replace the optical lens group of the traditional head-mounted display. The biggest feature is that it is not Will have motion sickness side effects"

"Huh?" Zhao Ziming was pleasantly surprised. He has a deep understanding of motion sickness.

I even think that motion sickness is the biggest obstacle to the fact that virtual reality technology cannot be widely promoted.

After all, no matter how advanced the technology is, and no matter how shocking the scene is, it will not last long to play, it will cause visual discomfort, headache and nausea, and it is difficult to have a market.Everyone can experience freshness, and will never indulge in it.

Chu Wensheng is very proud. His research on motion sickness is definitely the world's leading level, but the technical barriers are not big, once it is launched, it is easy to be cracked.

"Is energy production?" Zhao Ziming asked the biggest question.

"No," Chu Wensheng's answer was not unexpected.

Based on the VR scene that Zhao Ziming just felt, it has almost reached the point of being fake. If Magic Feiyue can realize the industrialization, it will definitely not be bought by a mere 500 million, and 5 billion will not be enough. It will inevitably face huge difficulties.

According to Zhao Ziming's information, many foreign laboratories have already implemented naked-eye 3D technology for small screens, and they are all stuck in the mass production stage. According to traditional statistics, it usually takes 6-8 years for new technologies to go from laboratory to industrialization. Zhao Ziming There is no hope for Magic Company.

"What are the main difficulties?" Zhao Ziming asked.

"On the imaging side, there are two aspects, one is the production of the photonic light field chip, and the other is the data rendering process.

As the core part of the light field display, the chip can be regarded as a mathematical operator that transforms the 2D light field into the 4D light field. It is said that the chip is actually composed of multiple waveguides, which converts the light beam into a spherical wavefront. Optical components.This is limited by the existing technology. If you want mass production on a large scale, you have to look for opportunities.

The other is data processing. Because VR images require a large amount of graphic rendering in the later stage, the real shooting and virtual construction of 3D information are digitally saved, and the workload is too large. The simple whale flying image you just saw was also a cost to us. It took a few months to complete the process."

Chu Wensheng explained the company's biggest difficulty in light field technology.

Zhao Ziming pondered. Since the imaging side has difficulties, the acquisition side should also have difficulties.

"The difficulty of the acquisition side lies in the filming equipment, which is large and complex. Take Lytro's new-generation light field camera as an example. The diameter is more than one meter and the camera is divided into five layers. It is very inconvenient to carry. The shoulder-mounted equipment is still far away."

Sure enough, Chu Wensheng continued,

Zhao Ziming hummed,

"What is our filming equipment?"

"Multi-camera arrays (Multi-cameraarrays), mainly through the arrangement of cameras in space to obtain a series of visual differences, the first 128 camera array proposed by Professor Marc Levoy of Stanford University in 1996, we are now using the MIT64 camera array Program"

Chu Wensheng pointed to a camera wall to make an introduction.

When Zhao Ziming saw it, he felt that the technological content was not high and there were no technical barriers.

"This kind of program is easier to implement in terms of hardware, but in terms of software data conversion, targeted processing is required."

Chu Wensheng also knew the difficulty, and briefly said it.

Zhao Ziming nodded, and after the whole tour, he also had a general understanding of Magic Feiyue Company and related light field technology, which provided a good start for the next step.

Limited by the hardware, it is unrealistic to want to launch mature VR devices, but any technological development will not be done once and for all.

When the mobile phone first came out, it was also very rudimentary. Until now, the headset is so small and exquisite.

Zhao Ziming believes that for the virtual world, head-mounted display devices are still the mainstay at the moment. 3D is the mainstream of head-mounted display devices (head-mounted displays), but head-mounted displays are troublesome after all, and naked-eye 3D is the future development trend.In the short term, 3D is still dominated by headsets.

There should be two possibilities for future headsets. Either it will become today's PC, a popular commodity, or it will become today's mobile phone and carry it with you.

After the visit, Zhao Ziming returned to the office to take a break, because the noon schedule was to have a meal with the senior staff of the Magic Company, Chu Wensheng left and made preparations in advance.

Zhao Ziming is very clear about his own advantages, "data processing", whether it is acquisition or imaging, cannot do without it.

For Chu Wensheng and the others, the difficult pre-data integration and post-data rendering, with the black technology of Xiaoxun, Zhao Ziming can easily break through.

His initial plan is to launch the first head-mounted display device in the next three to six months, first to become famous, even if it loses money.

Want to create an end-to-end VR system, not overnight, as Chu Wensheng said, the key to the VR ecosystem is how to make the VR scene clearer and more three-dimensional so that users can move around in the VR scene.

As for the others, such as light field technology camera arrays, dedicated servers and editing tools, streaming information stored in the cloud, and HR glasses purchased by customers, they all serve this service.

It is not difficult for Zhao Ziming to involve technology in the Magic Company. Although Chu Wensheng is a bigwig, he will not allow his family to be dominant.

The profit that Yang Xiaolong pursues, what Zhao Ziming wants is control.