This week, Tobii introduced Tobii Spotlight for Foveated Transport, a lightweight foveation codec for VR/AR/MR at SIGGRAPH 2021. It leverages the Tobii Spotlight foveated gaze stream and a proof-of-concept foveation codec, aligning computing power with the human visual system to optimize display technology and enable greater visual clarity. It reduces bandwidth and latency in the graphics rendering pipeline over 5G, wifi, or cable in split rendering systems.
The optimization demonstrated by this technology benefits the next generation of eye tracking enabled headsets that promise to deliver ultra-realistic content for truly immersive VR experiences while maintaining comfort with smooth rendering and the freedom of movement of wireless form factors.
This concept foveation codec for VR/AR/MR consists of image pre-reduction that can be combined with conventional video codecs. The initial testing gave no visible artifacts at a compression rate of 5:1 and the evaluation suggests that this approach can be implemented on current architectures improving visual quality and compression over static foveation. With more and more XR devices coming to market with native Tobii Eye Tracking, Tobii Spotlight for Foveated Transport will help devices meet the compression needs required to deliver high fidelity content and the best user experience.
NVIDIA is an innovation partner with Tobii working on this promising technology for a wide variety of usage areas in XR. For more information about Tobii Spotlight for Foveated Transport, please contact us.
