Google Develops 4.3" 120Hz 1443 PPI AMOLED Display for Wide-Field-of-View VR

In 2017, Google planned to develop a next-gen OLED VR display with a leading OLED maker. This year, Google will be showing off this display at SID 2018 in May.

The AMOLED display is 4.3" in size, has a refresh rate of 120 Hz, and a high resolution allowing for 1443 PPI (pixels per inch).

The display is designed to offer a wide field of view, as such, the resolution might be approximately 5200x3380.

Source: 1, 2

For comparison:

Man, that would be awesome! Can't wait to try it :)

We'll start to see VR headsets like this around the 2020 mark. Oculus said they expect 4000 x 4000 displays per eye to be the standard by 2021, so it fits in quite well.

Massive massive jumps. That's over 12x the pixels of a Rift / Vive right now. For comparison, that's about the same jump we saw from 360p to 1080p. Or a more modern example, 1080p to 6K.

It shouldn't be too hard to drive such displays with foveated rendering working with eye-tracking. I'd expect something similar for PSVR2 on PS5 even. A 3000 x 3000 or 4000 x 4000 per eye display for PSVR2 seems feasible.

Eh, Virtual Boy isn't even VR. It's just a stereoscopic 3D viewer and not a good one at that.

The higher resolution would definitely help reduce the screen door effect and a higher refresh rate will allow for an overall smoother experience.

Hopefully the technology doesn't take too long to come to market. I suppose we'll hear more on May 22nd.

It will definitely have a significant effect on the screen-door effect, as well as eliminate aliasing issues, and significantly increase the clarity of distant objects.

With screens like this, you could actually simulate virtual screens equivalent to 1080p at a normal viewing distance. In other words, this resolution is good enough to replace monitors and TVs. Granted, some people will still prefer their 4K TV, at least until VR hits parity with that as well, but since 1080p is still the standard, and virtual screens will always offer a better experience than it's physical counterpart, it does become a really viable option.

VR seems to have a very bright future. It's advancing really quick. Imagine what we'll see in the next 10 years... Gonna be amazing.

People will be surprised at the rate of progress. The jump from a 1995 headset to a 2016 headset was massive. And a jump between a 2016 headset and a headset in 3-5 years will be just as impactful. 20 years of progress in just 5 years.

I'd expect us to be at 8K per eye 200 degrees FoV in 10 years capable of near lifelike visuals with thin goggles instead of the headsets we have today. Likely using light-field displays as well.

We might start to see haptic gloves become feasible at that point.

Hmm. Sounds promising. It'll be interesting to see who comes out with the next major headset. Some good VR threads around here lately. Looks like interest is rising.

I may be wrong but I highly doubt foveated rendering will help much. I mean how could you start and stop rendering the part of the image in any meaningful time to make a noticeable improvement. How could you gurantee that I won't be focussing at a particular asset in the next moment and eyes can move way too quick. I think foveated rendering is just a concept and marketing tool with not much practical use.

And One thing I don't understand is why haven't VR has taken off in a big way. I can understand the high price point for gamers and not many big games are available but VR has potential beyond gaming. I mean it has huge potential in medicine and psychology why these fields are not taking advantage of this technology. Money surely won't be a factor there.

It's proven technology that has been demoed many times before working perfectly. This isn't some marketing tool.

No one noticed it was running at CES 2018 in the Tobii eye tracking demo.

The key now is to improve eye-tracking so that it never fails for any eye type or if your headset moves slightly.

Eye-tracking is already fast enough to fully keep up with your eye, that's no problem.

VR is actually doing quite well for itself. Nothing takes off in a big way this fast though. It took about 10 years for smartphones to take off and that was considered extremely fast.

VR is seeing decent use in enterprise already. It will really take off for enterprise when it can be used as an effective work environment. In other words, a headset with these displays, more comfortable, and hand-tracking + computer vision to map out your mouse and keyboard. This would also kill triple monitor setups entirely.

Awesome news. I like seeing the tech advance like this.

Am I the only person who saw bendable screens for phones and instantly thought VR improvements?

Well there are curved screens for VR on the horizon at the very least, for increased FoV at the same or smaller headset size.

Can you link me to the source or video? I would love to see that working and really awesome if it actually works.

Here are user reactions: https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/7q3si7/future_proof_foveated_rendering_works_amazingly/

And a video on eye-tracking itself, though a year earlier without foveated rendering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBINRku82hA

There's more info here as well: https://youtu.be/gV42w573jGA?t=1167

VR is the future its the future!

UPDATE:

Google's partner in development is now known to be LG Display.

Kool. Thanks for sharing.

Another Google update: They just released another VR app on Steam: Welcome to Light Fields.

They're using light-fields to do volumetric scene capture. This means you can now move about 1:1 in a scene that is indistinguishable from real life, at least in a smallish area: http://store.steampowered.com/app/771310/Welcome_to_Light_Fields/

This is going to be incredible as time goes on. It's currently for static scenes, but this will work for videos too. Yes, you'll be able to literally walk around a video with lifelike visuals, maybe even one that is playing live.

It's very very convincing, the place feels quite lifelike. We just need these wide FoV, high resolution displays and it will be truly glorious.

@blueberry_bandit I remember reading about the tech behind this last year. Iv been looking forward to trying it out.

Edit: Just tried it. Its quite impressive and will certainly revolutionize VR porn. If this works with live video too then wow. Imagine watching your favorite sport from the sidelines, being ringside during a boxing match or on stage with your favorite band.

It can work for videos, and I see no reason why it couldn't work live, however capturing videos like this supposedly takes 4.5 terabytes for every minute captured. They're going to have to compress it a bunch or find some solutions to that. It'll happen eventually for sure.

If they're getting depth information from it, you might be able to touch things in the video which, combined with haptic gloves, would be very close to a real life teleportation device. It might even be possible for people at that real location to see you via AR glasses in real time.

It also opens up the possibility for social VR where you can grab some friends, jump into a live video of a concert with them and essentially attend a concert for real, but virtually with people across the globe.

https://www.blog.google/products/google-vr/experimenting-light-fields/

They have an interesting blog post discussing their capture method.