Oculus has taken yet another technology startup Surreal Vision into its fold, reportedly in a bid to reconstruct the real world in virtual environment. The financial details of the acquisition are yet to be revealed.
Surreal Vision - a computer vision company focused on real-time 3D scene reconstruction is the latest in the list of startups acquired including Carbon Design Group and Nimble VR.
“Surreal Vision Joins Oculus! We’re thrilled to announce that the Surreal Vision team has joined Oculus Research!” as stated in the official Oculus Blog.
The Surreal Vision team along with the three founders - Renato Salas-Moreno, the inventor of Dense Planar SLAM and also the SLAM++ (SLAM at the level of objects); - Richard Newcombe, the inventor of DynamicFusion, KinectFusion, DTAM (Dense Tracking and Mapping) and the co-inventor of SLAM++; - Steven Lovegrove, author of SplineFusion and the co-inventor of DTAM, will continue their work in 3D scene reconstruction pushing the boundaries of computer vision, as a part of Oculus Research at Redmond.
The company’s goal is to continuously capture perfect images of the surroundings, interpret, analyze and reconstruct it in virtual environment. The scene re-projection algorithms at Surreal Vision can build an accurate model of everything in real-world environment, including interactions between people.
According to the statement by the team, the computer vision company is creating real-time models that bring both the real and virtual worlds together.
“These technologies will lead to VR and AR systems that can be used in any condition, day or night, indoors or outdoors. They will open the door to true telepresence, where people can visit anyone, anywhere,” co-founder of Surreal Vision, Richard Newcombe stated, Slash Gear quoted him as saying.
The Surreal Vision technology will likely be helpful to Oculus in creating more realistic virtual environments for the Oculus Rift. The Facebook-owned company’s flagship device is said to be getting geared up for an early launch next year. The company is expected to reveal latest details on the upcoming device on June 11, 2015, during the Facebook event to be held in San Francisco.