Facebook Reality Labs will present new work on a ‘reverse passthrough’ VR concept at this year’s SIGGRAPH event which, honestly, looks quite terrifying in its current form. A blog post from FRL’s research team posted this week showcases the concept. Reverse passthrough essentially shows a render of the VR user’s eyes on 3D displays at the front of the headset. The idea is to reduce the effect of VR users shutting off from people in the real world when they pull a device over their face. We’ve seen similar ideas before from companies like Google, who once showcased a means of showing the user’s face inside mixed reality capture. This project in particular was led by research scientist Nathan Matsuda. Images in the blog post show very early versions of this work which, honestly, look quite frightening. But these are of course prototypes, not consumer products, meant more to display the idea in its raw form rather than present it as a consumer-ready concept. According to the blog post, Matsuda started work on the concept in 2019, when he built a prototype Rift S headset with a 3D screen displayed on the front of the kit. The image displayed is…
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Facebook's 'Reverse Passthrough' VR Prototype Is Nightmare Fuel (Right Now)
