The VR rig was not for the Oasis but a new approach to surgery, a form of synthetic AR.
Let’s say you are doing some brain surgery. Today, the MRI files of the tumor location and other imaging data is off on a separate screen. To integrate these views, you need to integrate into the field of view. So, they use a light field camera to capture holistic images of the brain in real time; the surgeon wears the VR rig and sees the brain (not a 3D model as typically seen in VR). I was looking at a demo of this. As I tilt my head or zoom in or out, it happens in real time (the light field camera captures so much data that all of these views can be constructed in real time). And the data overlay occurs in the VR domain.
My conclusion is that VR on a light field capture is a clever new way to do AR.
While this is deployed in the surgery room initially, it offers a gateway to robotic telemedicine in the future.
Co-founder of this stealth startup and VICIS (the new football helmet company), Sam Browd is Genevieve’s cool cousin (he is also an expert on separating conjoined twins).
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