Lytro Introduces ‘Immerge’ For Cinematic Virtual Reality

What the light field volume represents is, we’re densely capturing all the rays in a given geometric volume, and then we’ve built software that lets us play back those rays at very high frame rates and at high resolution. Now it’s pushing a new type of image capture by creating an innovative way to capture and edit reality for the virtual world.

If you’re not quite with me, I don’t blame you. While that may not sound like much, if VR is to ever become the new medium for interactive film or a way to transport people to countries and cities they’ll never be able to visit, live-action VR seriously needs to be improved. “Because of our expertise in light field, we like to pretend we’re visionaries”. Simple 360-degree cameras can record a full sphere, but the video they capture is still flat.

Lytro is expanding into cinematography, virtual reality, and scientific and industrial applications with its first camera rig for VR video: the Lytro Immerge.

The Lytro Immerge was built from the ground up to provide lifelike presence in VR with “six degrees of freedom”. The HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR will redefine how we entertain and educate ourselves, but there’s still one fundamental problem with them all: only a few of experiences they produce feel real.

All that means an ability to meld the virtual, computer generated, world and real filmed world more convincingly. And then, from a consumer experience, you’ll be able to move around within that volume and have the world react accordingly. And while neither of these models can shoot video, it was only a matter of time before Lytro applied its tech to create a product with filmmakers and gamers in mind.

Instead of just filming a scene in 360-degrees, Immerge recreates the scene that is being filmed. It describes the suite of tools and hardware that make up a pipeline developed by Lytro to allow creators to capture and utilise the enormous amounts of detailed information the new camera is capable of capturing. The server can hold up to one hour of raw capture data, and process the light field recordings in order to get them prepared for editing.

Lytro touts several advantages to using its technology to record live-action virtual reality when compared with traditional stereoscopic cameras. But, he said, selling the Immerge isn’t really the plan. Because Immerge captures three dimensional data, “footage” can be placed into VFX packages like Nuke with CGI elements accurately placed within the scenes alongside the real-time photography.

I imagine that the more of these Immerge units in a room facing different directions, the better the final render of the room will be.

The Immerge platform, which is still in its prototype phase, will consist of a 360-degree light field camera, a server, and editing and playback capabilities.

You may remember Lytro as the company that introduced a new way to take photographs.

Of course, Lytro aren’t talking hard numbers just yet. Lytro further added that it will start renting the camera in the first quarter of 2016.

Yes it is, and Lytro are acutely aware of this.

Virtual reality is an area of technology that is getting a lot of attention right now. But creating great VR content is not an easy feat, so the Immerge presents an attractive solution. We were in early phases of moving from 2D digital to 3D computational light field.