“Wide Field-of-View Mixed Reality” by Xiao, Zhao, Lindberg, Hegland, Moczydlowski, et al. …
Conference:
Experience Type(s):
Title:
- Wide Field-of-View Mixed Reality
Organizer(s)/Presenter(s):
- Lei Xiao
- Yang Zhao
- Dave Lindberg
- Joel Hegland
- Seth Moczydlowski
- Eric Penner
- Dan Tebbs
- Daniel Terpstra
- Ian Ender
- Yu-Jen Lin
- Julia Majors
- Douglas Lanman
Interest Areas(s):
- Gaming & Entertainment
- New Technologies
- Research / Education
Description:
The human visual system has a horizontal field of view (FOV) of approximately 200 degree. However, existing virtual and mixed reality head-mounted displays (HMDs) typically have horizontal FOVs around 110 degree. While wider FOVs have been demonstrated in consumer devices, such immersive optical designs generally come at the cost of larger form factors, limiting physical comfort and social acceptance. To address these limitations, we develop a pair of novel wide field-of-view headsets, each achieving a horizontal FOV of 180 degree with resolution and form factor comparable to current-generation consumer devices (i.e., Meta Quest 3). Our first prototype supports wide-FOV virtual reality experiences using a novel optical design leveraging high-curvature reflective polarizers. Our second prototype further enables mixed reality demonstrations by incorporating a custom camera solution that is capable of capturing and streaming more than 80 megapixels at 60 frames per second. By incorporating both wide-FOV display and passthrough systems, our prototype headsets establish a new state-of-the-art in immersive virtual and mixed reality experiences, pointing to the user benefits of wider FOVs for entertainment and telepresence applications.
References:
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[2] Shoki Kishida, Kazuyuki Arimatsu, Yusuke Onishi, Norihide Kaneko, Yasutoshi Katsuda, Makoto Koizumi, and Takashi Shimazu. 2024. Enhancing Panoramic Experience in Head-Mounted Displays: Multiple Optical Systems and Real-Time Display Technology. In SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 Emerging Technologies(SA ’24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 5, 3 pages.
[3] Pimax. 2025. https://pimax.com/.
[4] Joshua Ratcliff, Alexey Supikov, Santiago Alfaro, and Ronald Azuma. 2020. ThinVR: VR displays with wide FOV in a compact form factor. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2020 Emerging Technologies (Virtual Event, USA) (SIGGRAPH ’20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 5, 2 pages.
[5] Varjo. 2025. https://varjo.com/products/xr-4/.
