What is a Light Field?

Holographic virtual reality has been part of popular culture ever since Gene Roddenberry introduced the Holodeck in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Holographic video, or holographic light field rendering as it’s technically known, produces stunningly realistic images that can be viewed from any vantage point. Because of its computational complexity, commercial holographic video and VFX have not been commercially viable until OTOY’s light field GPU technology made it tractable through OTOY’s OctaneRender software. OctaneRender can predetermine all the necessary lighting information for a given light field and retrieve it in real-time on consumer VR devices powered by mobile GPUs. Given the viewer’s position/orientation, ORBX holographic video can turn a normal display screen into a virtual window, projecting the proper light path from a curved or VR display directly into the viewer’s eyes. Each frame of video accurately simulates every ray of light in a given scene or environment and every interaction that each light ray has with the surfaces and materials therein. Every reflection, refraction, and absorption of that field of light is modelled as it would be in the real world. OTOY’s GPU-based rendering and cloud graphics platform further enables live post-processing, motion graphics and foveated compositing inside VR and light field video content. The experience works both offline and for live streaming holographic videos.

Virtual reality headsets, both those powered by desktops and mobile GPUs, are expected to be the first way that people will experience OTOY’s holographic videos, though content can easily be adapted to other devices. Applications where greater immersion or interactivity are desired (such as gaming, film, attractions, and simulation) are most suitable for the technology.