Augmented reality is going to be one of the next big waves in computing. When it hits its true potential, it is going to change how we all use and think about technology. The Meta 2 Development Kit announced last week is one of the closest glimpses at this potential that we have seen so far. While there are a few articles out there talking about the new headset announcement in general, I wanted to really focus in on what this means for developers.
For about a year and a half now, I have been lucky enough to have a Meta 1 Developer Kit and have spent a bunch of time experimenting and putting together my own concept prototype app. The SDK makes the process in Unity a lot easier than many expect it would be. The Meta 2 looks like it will be leaps and bounds ahead of the device I've spent countless hours tinkering with!
What is Meta?
Meta are a Silicon Valley based company who've been working on augmented reality since a successful Kickstarter campaign in May 2013. Not long after that campaign, they were also accepted into the well known Y Combinator program. In September 2014, they began shipping the Meta 1 Developer Kit to developers around the world. This kit looked like so:
The Meta 1 provides an augmented reality headset experience where 3D objects are projected in front of you within a limited field of view. These objects appear as if they are in the room with you and can be touched, grabbed and pinched providing some great real world interaction! The augmented reality objects were even able to lock onto areas in the real world via square markers like this one which I use for my own AR app:
Last week, they released the details of their entirely new headset concept — the Meta 2. The Meta 2 appears to have all the capabilities mentioned above and more. It looks like this:
Improved Field of View
One of the challenges of AR headsets so far is getting as much of the headset view to be augmented as possible. The Meta 1, ODG R-7 Smart Glasses and Microsoft HoloLens each have a slightly limited field of view, best imagined as a transparent screen in front of your vision that reveals augmented objects when you look in their direction. The best image I have found which shows this field of view concept is this one from a Microsoft HoloLens demo video:
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The Meta 1 came with two different lens hoods — one with a 23 degree field of view and another with a 32 degree field of view. The HoloLens has approximately a 30 degree field of view and ODG's latest unreleased prototype has a 50 degree field of view. While each of those measurements might not be comparable (some are horizontal and others diagonal?), you can get a sense of the typical FOV range from those numbers.
The Meta 2 is leaps and bounds above these, with a 90 degree field of view. This means that quite a large part of the display is now augmented. Meta's Meta 2 Product Launch Video visualizes the field of view like so:
This will give developers a great way to showcase their augmented reality apps in a more immersive way and also expands what is possible within an AR application. A greater field of view opens up more possibilities in the interface that might otherwise have been confusing with the smaller view size.
High Resolution Display
The Meta 1 provided a 960 x 540 resolution for each eye (each eye has a separate projected screen). I have seen some specs that say the Microsoft HoloLens and ODG's R-7 Smart Glasses have a larger 1280 × 720 resolution for each eye.
The Meta 2's display has a 2560 x 1440 DPI overall display, which is high resolution enough to be able to read text comfortably and see finer details. With the field of view, it ends up being 20 pixels per degree. I'm not quite sure how this measures up to the HoloLens and R-7 Smart Glasses, taking into account the different types of display technology.
Continue reading %What the Meta 2 Means for Augmented Reality Developers%
by Patrick Catanzariti via SitePoint
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