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Something to look forward to: Sony unveiled its alternative to VR, AR, and 3D glasses for enterprise customers three years ago – a flat screen using eye tracking to present the illusion of three dimensions. The ultra-expensive display seems to have done well enough to warrant a follow-up with more screen real estate and expanded development tools.
Sony revealed its second-generation Spatial Reality Display this week. The ELF-SR2 offers a 27-inch option – expanding on the original‘s 15.6 inches – and can more accurately track viewers’ eyes for a smoother 3D presentation.
The new display fundamentally resembles the 2020 original, with a 4K screen providing glasses-free stereoscopic 3D. At $5,000, it targets designers and developers who want to see their projects in three dimensions without glasses or a VR headset.
Although the ELF-SR2 maintains the original’s output resolution, the company added a super resolution feature that upscales the image from 2K to 4K. How the engine compares to similar methods from AMD and Nvidia is unclear.
While the first-gen model supported Unity and Unreal Engine, the list of tools has expanded considerably. Users can integrate the screen with OpenGL, DirectX 11 and 12, 3DICOM MD, Digital Nation Entertainment, HoluSuite, KiksAR, Magnopus, Pixomondo, Shop Architects, Sketchfab, and WhiteMoon Dreams. Users can build VR and AR content on-display in real-time using OpenXR later this year.
Necessary materials like SDKs and case studies are freely available on Sony’s website. The company plans to eventually launch a website to host apps specifically designed for the display with up-to-date app information.
Sony thinks a large glasses-free 3D display can help in architecture, automotive design, 3D art production, education, and healthcare. It could also prove useful informational kiosk applications where retailers might want to show off real-looking 3D models of products.
Like its predecessor, the ELF-SR2 supports the Adobe sRGB color gamut and a 6,500K color temperature. It also features 10-bit color depth (8bit + FRC). Furthermore, it still works by connecting to a PC with identical system requirements to the original – a six-core CPU, a GeForce RTX 2070 Super GPU (or any GPU with at least an 18,000 3Dmark score), 16GB of RAM, and an SSD.
The ELF-SR2 ships in May. Sony will display the 27-inch model at the Last Vegas NAB Show from April 16-19, the Santa Clara Augmented World Expo from May 31 to June 2, and the Orlando IfoComm from June 14-16.
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Bong Pecora