“Can I make a full-field-of-view AR or VR display by directly shining lasers into my eyes?”
No.
Well, technically, you can, but not in the way you probably imagine if you asked that question. What you can’t do is mount some tiny laser emitter somewhere out of view, have it shine a laser directly into your pupil, and expect to get a virtual image covering your entire field of view (see Figure 1). Light, and your eyes, don’t work that way.
Figure 1: A magical retinal display using a tiny laser emitter somewhere off to the side of each eye. This doesn’t work in reality. If a single beam of light entering the eye could be split up to illuminate large parts of the retina, real-world vision would not work.
Since Microsoft’s Build 2015 conference, and increasingly since Microsoft’s showing at E3, everybody (including me) has been talking about HoloLens, and its limited field of view (FoV) has been a contentious topic. The main points being argued (fought) about are:
What exactly is the HoloLens’ FoV?
Why is it as big (or small) as it is, and will it improve for the released product?
How does the size of the FoV affect the HoloLens’ usability and effectiveness?
Were Microsoft’s released videos and live footage of stage demos misleading?
How can one visualize the HoloLens’ FoV in order to give people who have not tried it an idea what it’s like?
Measuring Field of View
Initially, there was little agreement among those who experienced HoloLens regarding its field of view. That’s probably due to two reasons: one, it’s actually quite difficult to measure the FoV of a headmounted display; and two, nobody was allowed to bring any tools or devices into the demonstration rooms. In principle, to measure see-through FoV, one has to hold some object, say a ruler, at a known distance from one’s eyes, and then mark down where the apparent left and right edges of the display area fall on the object. Knowing the distance X between the left/right markers and the distance Y between the eyes and the object, FoV is calculated via simple trigonometry: FoV = 2×tan-1(X / (Y×2)) (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Calculating field of view by measuring the horizontal extent of the apparent screen area at a known distance from the eyes. (In this diagram, FoV is 2×tan-1(6″ / (6″×2)) = 53.13°.)
I have briefly mentioned HoloLens, Microsoft’s upcoming see-through Augmented Reality headset, in a previous post, but today I got the chance to try it for myself at Microsoft’s “Build 2015” developers’ conference. Before we get into the nitty-gritty, a disclosure: Microsoft invited me to attend Build 2015, meaning they waived my registration fee, and they gave me, like all other attendees, a free HP Spectre x360 notebook (from which I’m typing right now because my vintage 2008 MacBook Pro finally kicked the bucket). On the downside, I had to take Amtrak and Bart to downtown San Francisco twice, because I wasn’t able to get a one-on-one demo slot on the first day, and got today’s 10am slot after some finagling and calling in of favors. I guess that makes us even. 😛
So, on to the big question: is HoloLens real? Given Microsoft’s track record with product announcements (see 2009’s Project Natal trailer and especially the infamous Milo “demo”), there was some well-deserved skepticism regarding the HoloLens teaser released in January, and even the on-stage demo that was part of the Build 2015 keynote:
