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For decades, the quest of making an effective virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) system which creates an immersive environment that transfer the individual into a virtual world without inducing illness has eluded engineers and scientists. Recently, however, several systems are showing promise to moving us closer to an effective virtual reality system, most notably the Oculus Rift. The Oculus rift has and continues to transform how the industry is thinking about the potential of virtual reality. On the other hand, being able to overlay content to reality without blocking the view of the real world is the attractive promise of AR. AR would radically change life and society in unimaginable ways and create a new wave of computing revolution. AR has a whole different set of technology requirements that make its full realization possibly even harder to accomplish than VR. The optics of VR and AR have been well studied but now need to be rethought given how optics are evolving in many areas including display, computational optics, holography, and optics fabrication. This presentation describes the main challenges of VR/AR and provides some insight into how Facebook Reality Labs is thinking about this space.
Giuseppe Calafiore graduated with honors in Engineering Physics at the Polytechnic University of Turin, Italy. He also received a second master’s degree in Engineering Systems from the Queensland University of Technology, Australia. He received his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Turin in 2015 with a thesis on the nanoimprint of optical devices in functional materials. During and after his PhD, Dr. Calafiore spent 5 years at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) in Berkeley where he conducted a research on new nano-structured materials and patterning techniques for optical devices in the visible range.
Dr. Calafiore joined Facebook Reality Labs in 2016 to lead a nanofab project within the AR Optics team. His research on nano-photonics and nanofabrication performed at the Molecular Foundry, LBNL, received several highlights in numerous conferences and journals. Dr. Calafiore is author of more than 20 scientific papers and 30+ patents in the field of nanofabrication and optics.
