Pixel density is a funny thing: a 13.3 inch laptop with a 1920 x 1080 pixel display has about 165 pixels per inch, and it’s hard to see the lines separating one pixel from the next. A 5 inch phone with the same display resolution has 440 pixels per inch, which is also pretty much good enough to keep you from seeing where one pixel ends and the next begins.
But put a 165 ppi or 440 ppi display in a virtual reality headset or some other form of head-mounted display and you get a screen door effect, where it’s easy to get distracted by the big lines separating each pixel.
That’s why we’ve seen companies like Japan Display and Samsung have developed displays that have more than 800 pixels per inch: they’re not for phones or laptops. They’re for head-mounted displays.
Google and LG appear to be going (a lot) further: the companies plan to show off a 1443 ppi display in May.
While we’ll probably have to wait until May to get all the details, the two companies are scheduled to give a presentation at Display Week 2018.
According to the schedule, they’ll be showing:
An 18 Megapixel 4.3″ 1443 ppi 120 Hz OLED Display for Wide Field of View High Acuity Head Mounted Displays
LG says it’s the “world’s highest resolution OLED-on-glass display” and that it uses an n-type LPS backplane.
It can be used for virtual reality and augmented reality applications.
There’s no word on if or when you’ll be able to buy a headset using this new display. But having attempted to watch movies and play games using a Google Pixel phone and a Daydream View headset, only to be turned off by the screen door effect, I can’t help but get a little excited at the prospect of wearable displays with higher pixel densities and higher screen refresh rates.
via Android Police and OLED infoÂ
I think that OLED is the future. It has good resolution and uses less power than LCD.
I’ve got a great idea. They should call it a Retina display.
The New Retina display, to be precise.
Ooh, one of the factors stopping VR headsets replacing monitors is that their resolution is too low so a virtual monitor looks awfully low res. Remove that barrier and the one thing left is how to control a cursor nicely when you can’t see the input device (trackballs again? Same place on the desk every time unlike a mouse)
People are toying with that. Most polished example is Logitech one:
https://blog.vive.com/us/2017/11/02/introducing-the-logitech-bridge-sdk/
Still using a bulky general purpose tracker, but could be integrated in a normal keyboard.
For the mouse, better have a VR controler nearby. It’s already like a 3D mouse.
I guess people will design one for mixed usage, it there is a market for it. Need more sensors than a normal mouse and a bigger form (could also use the usual desk-laser, though).
But I guess adding a trackpad and/or small pointer in a VR keyboard is easier first.
Realistically, higher res is ok but what we really need is light field displays.