Holography on smartphones due as Arm partners VividQ

Arm is now partnering with VividQ to bring holographic display capabilities to mobiles.

VividQ is a deep tech software company with world-leading expertise in 3D holography, powered by expert engineers, mathematicians and computer scientists out of the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and St Andrews. The Castle Park-based company, which emerged from Photonics in 2016, has patented technology for commercial applications of holographic display in AR/VR headsets and smartglasses, automotive head-up displays, and consumer electronics. Its algorithm-driven holography is only possible thanks to the power of today’s processors, which is where Arm comes in.

“Our partnership with Arm means that holographic display is enabled on mobile devices for the first time, thanks to VividQ software’s compatibility with Arm Mali GPUs,” says Aleksandra M Pedraszewska, co-founder and COO. “Holographic display addresses one of the major reasons why consumer augmented reality - AR- has not yet kicked on: the need for realistic depth perception.

“The natural depth of field in AR can be achieved with computer-generated holography powered by VividQ software . Our partnership with Arm means that holographic display is enabled on mobile devices for the first time, thanks to VividQ software’s compatibility with Arm Mali GPUs.”

Writing in an Arm Community blog, Will Foote, Arm senior solutions marketing manager, said: “Through valued partnerships with companies like VividQ, we can address current AR challenges, particularly around display, and help to enable the next generation of AR devices .”

Will explains the new expression of holography thus: “Depth perception is crucial for the human vision system to interpret what we see in the world. There are around 18 depth cues that help you determine distances between objects and their relationship to you, and each other. Your brain makes sense of these depth cues in the real world to provide an understanding about your surroundings. Should the depth cues provide conflicting information, then it can lead to confusion or even nausea.

“Most of the AR wearables available today, such as smartglasses or head-mounted displays - HMDs - display digital images at one or, at best, two depth planes.

“Holographic projections generated using VividQ software, simulating scenarios where all virtual images are generated on a) one depth-plane and b) multiple depth-planes to match the real environment.”

Tom Durrant, VividQ co-founder and CDO, said: “Our hope is to jumpstart the expansion and adoption of AR, empowering it with a revolutionary new display technology. Our collaboration with Arm – an international player in high-performance integrated compute solutions – supports the ambitious roll-out of holographic display, powered by VividQ. The Arm Mali GPU is perfect for computationally intensive applications, such as computer-generated holography.

“We are delighted to be working closely with Arm to bring truly realistic and immersive holographic experiences to life.”