You’ve likely heard the term Metaverse and how it’s the “next big thing”. But what role will cameras play in it?
Imagine putting on a pair of VR glasses and playing a game of chess with your friend who moved across the country 10 years ago. Metaverse is cool enough sounding just as a word, but the possibilities it will present in the up and coming years is truly mind-boggling.
You have likely heard the term more regularly in the past few months as Facebook announced Meta and you likely just shake your head up and down (or silently side by side) as the conversation carries on. You might doubt it, despise it or wrestle with it, but make no mistake that it’s here and the implications for society will be revolutionary. It will make the explosion of the cell phone market look like the transition from cassette to CD. It will offer an immersive experience that will take you to the edges of reality and in many cases blur those lines.
Imagine going to this new, limitless place where you can interact with folks from all over the world without ever leaving your sofa. Visit a group of friends, listen to lecture, catch a concert of a long-dead musician – limitless possibilities.
Let’s define the metaverse with an application. You’re working on a old car as a hobby and you’re not 100% sure how to set the timing on the engine. You go to Google and watch a YouTube video – that’s what most folks would do today. You pause, rewind, play again and repeat until you finally understand the process.
Now let’s jump into the not-so-distant future; you’ll jump into a call in the Metaverse with an expert mechanic 1000 miles away and they’ll actually show you how to do it using augmented/virtual reality. They’ll tell you how to connect the timing tool, show you exactly where to point it on the engine, and how to make the necessary adjustment.
This will be done as they are watching you through a special camera that can see in “3-D”. The accuracy will be pin-point and having an expert walk you through the process will make it quick, seamless and very cost-effective. When finished, you can both retreat to the virtual tavern next door for a beer and chat about common interests, hobbies, etc. Just like that you’ve made your first virtual friend in the metaverse – although that person can be a live human being (or not….).
Welcome to the Metaverse, a place based on virtual/augmented reality where extremely small, accurate and affordable cameras will play a vital role in daily tasks. Rather than today’s visual experiences that are predominantly two dimensional and assisted by audio, the Metaverse will be 3-D centric and to do-so, cameras need to render images as such. Depth of the environment is the key here folks; the ability for the cameras to see in more than just X-Y coordinates as they do today.
Cameras will require X-Y-Z sampling functionality, in real time with motion-based algorithms to construct a hologram for the remote viewer who will use some sort of viewing device to immerse themselves into scene; think back to those old 3-D glasses you used when watching “Jaws 3D” but a much more powerful device often referred to today as “VR headsets”.
Cameras will need to adapt to this new three-dimensional world, which means the ability to detect depth; that means the camera needs a sensor for RGB. It also needs a level of AI (artificial intelligence) in order to know where objects are and which direction they are moving in. Lastly, some form of computing power is necessary to tie all this together and take action on the AI and depth parameters.
Well, there you are, less than a minute and now you know what role cameras will play in the Metaverse as well as how they’ll need to change in order to support the applications.
Stay tuned for more VISION360 information.
