Today marks the start of the SPIE AR | VR | MR international conference in San Francisco, California. The three day conference, organized by the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), focuses on the latest research, development, and applications in the fields of Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR). The conference brings together scientists, engineers, researchers, and industry professionals from around the world to share their latest work and ideas. This years’ conference will include talks, panel discussions, and technical events, showcasing the world’s largest AR, VR and MR companies, start-ups, and suppliers.
Founded in 1955, the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) is an international professional organization dedicated to advancing the science and application of imaging and photonics. SPIE's mission is to promote the generation, dissemination, and application of scientific knowledge in the field of imaging and photonics.
As we wait for Brain-Computer Interface, or BCI, technology, which enables artificial output to be sent directly into our central nervous system. and trick our brains into believing that virtual versions of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch, are real, smart glasses and head-mounted displays are our passport into the Metaverse. Self-billed as “the most important conference on optical architectures (optics, displays, sensors) for the next generation of smart glasses and head-mounted displays”, SPIE AR | VR | MR provides insight into how we’re going to enter the Metaverse in the near to medium future. Unsurprisingly The SPIE AR | VR | MR Technical Committee includes several future titans of the Metaverse, including Magic Leap, Meta, Microsoft, Sony, Google, and Apple.
This year’s speakers panel moderators include, Director of XR Hardware at Google, Bernard Kress, AR Product Tech Lead at Meta, Naamah Argaman, Vice President of Eyepiece Manufacturing Engineering at Magic Leap, Scott Carden, and Lead Optical Engineer at Sony, Akira Yoshikaie.
We’re particularly looking forward to understanding new advances in, and new use cases for, smart glasses and head-mounted display technology. Later on this morning optical design and engineering company LightTrans International will be presenting “Enabling the Metaverse through mass manufacturing of industry-standard optical waveguide combiners”. In it principal scientist Dr. Stefan Stein will be discussing the potential to improve AR smart glasses through “nanoimprinting of surface-relief grating-based waveguides” by responding to challenges associated with their design, scaling, and reproducibility. For those of you out there who aren’t optical engineers, optical waveguides are used to transport virtual images from smart glasses of headsets to our eyes.
The SPIE AR | VR | MR international conference runs from the 31st January to the 1st of February. Don’t forget to leave a comment below!
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