Sony has announced that it has started to ship its Spatial Reality Display (SR Display). This "goundbreaking" display is claimed to bring displayed objects to life, offering "an entirely new medium and experience for designers and creators everywhere". These displays make use of Sony's award-winning Eye-Sensing Light Field Display (ELFD) technology to present a 3D optical experience that is viewable to the naked eye. In other words it is a 3D display that doesn't require the viewer to don special spectacles or an HMD.
Video packed with awe-struck professional content creator sound bites
Watching the video above doesn't give one a great idea of the SR Display's appeal as one can't see it working as a third person on a common or garden computer monitor via a YouTube video. The film-makers, graphic artists, engineers and product designers featured in the video do their best to explain the SR Display's appeal but you will probably gain a better understanding, or imagining, of the viewing experience by digesting the description of the underlying technology.
Three main technologies come into play to create the SR Display as follows:
- High-speed Vision Sensor - The SR Display is based an innovative high-speed vision sensor which follows exact eye position in space, on vertical, horizontal and depth axes simultaneously. The display monitors eye movement down to the millisecond, while rendering the image instantaneously, based on the location and position of the viewer's eyes. This allows creators to interact with their designs in a highly-realistic virtual, 3D environment, from any angle without glasses.3
- Real-time Rendering Algorithm - Additionally, the SR Display leverages an original processing algorithm to display content in real-time. This allows the stereoscopic image to appear as smooth as real life, even if the viewer moves around.
- Micro Optical Lens - The micro optical lens is positioned precisely over the stunning 15.6 inches (diag.) LCD display. This lens divides the image into the left and right eyes allowing for stereoscopic viewing with just the naked eye.
Sony shared a couple of testimonials in a press release about the debut of the SR Display. It appears that auto-makers and film studios have been making use of this first 15.6-inch SR Display product from Sony and value it for its "highly practical visual experience, where detailed colours, textures, contrasts and brightness fuse, to form a new medium for image". It is particularly useful in remote collaborations and helps bring designs to life. You can check through the full specs of the Sony SR Display here.
For those looking to bring the SR Display into their workflow, Sony has readied an SDK which is compatible with Unity and Unreal Engine.
The SR Display has a suggested retail price of US$4,999.99 and will be available to buy from next month. There are no pre-orders available as yet; at the time of writing the Sony direct order page includes a 'Notify Me' email alert button.
