Spatial display's path to market

Imagine sitting in a meeting room with a screen mounted on the wall in front of you, a video call comes in. The person calling you suddenly appears to be sitting right in front of you, within arms reach.

The wall and screen have faded away. You chat with each other, looking each other in the eyes and it feels like you are chatting with the person in the room instead of merely looking at a screen.

You extend your arm a little bit and move towards where the screen was and you can give each other a high five – almost. You realize it's still a virtual call when your hand touches the glass; it's the AI-powered volumetric display that creates the sense of co-presence.

Google's spatial product

This is Google's Project Starline, a concept that was first developed about five years ago. 2024 marks the year of the first public demo and the announcement with their partner HP. Having a video call with volumetrics is not a new concept, but it is a milestone when it's scheduled for commercialization in 2025 by Google and HP.

Google is no stranger to spatial displays. It was one of the first Fortune 500 companies that dedicated resources to build spatial displays like Google Glass. Project Starline seems to have a smoother path to market compared to Google Glass.

The maturity of Starline means more for the industry than just a new product coming out of Google Labs, it shows where we are in spatial computing today. From a graphics perspective, we have 2D text and pictures on one end of the spectrum; moving toward the other end with a higher level of technical complexity we have video.

Project Starline is 3D but with simpler interactions. It doesn't have the interactions users would have with Meta Quest headsets, where they can teleport themselves/walk in the virtual world with their pointer fingers pulling the trigger; nor does it have the interactions users would have with Apple Vision Pro, where they can look at a button and pinch to click it.

Yet the beauty of Starline is that there are no headsets involved. The cameras sit on top of the screen, and users simply show up as themselves in real-time 3D (in contrast, having a spatial call with Apple Vision Pro, users would show up as the scanned avatar of themselves). Project Starline's use cases may be more limited compared to AR/VR headsets. It's a more than reasonable trade-off: There is far less associated market education and change in user behaviors, especially Google plans to make it work with standard video conferencing tools like Google Meet and Zoom.

VR adoption

It has been a decade since Meta (formerly Facebook) announced plans to acquire Oculus. "Headset adoption is the bottleneck for VR growth." said Doug Griffin, the General Partner of Spatial Capital, a venture capital firm based in the San Francisco Bay Area, "Many people would think the reason is the ease of content creation, but I don't believe that's the case. The issue is creating a compelling use case to onboard users. Project Starline's holographic video could be the killer app, starting with enterprise and moving to consumers. It brings people closer." Before becoming an investor, Doug led startups culminating in exits to Apple and Roblox. He explicitly shies away from any startup investment opportunities where headset adoption is the precursor of the startup's success.

SIGGRAPH 2024 project submissions have increased in almost all categories (average growth at 36%, steamed by AI). VR is the only exception. It sees a small drop from 46 submissions to 44 submissions, making it a 4% decrease.

SIGGRAPH 2024 VR Theater Director Yangos Hadjiyannis shared excitement about more VR developers nowadays exploring the physical space. It helps create an even more immersive experience. He also noted that creatives are also mindful of the interaction design, given that they are aware that most audiences are first-time VR users.

HTC, a VR headset manufacturer with a strong presence in Asia, has been making tools to promote 3D use cases, even if that means some users may not always use VR headsets to access the software solutions they provide. HTC made socializing in the 3D world possible also on the web and mobile, even without logging in with any user account.

In July, HTC made the VIVERSE Polygon Streaming Overview video public, highlighting how users can now stream high-fidelity 3D models with ease. The integration with Unreal Engine, Unity, and Web XR further showcased the intent of trying to relate to as many developers as possible. At SIGGRAPH's expo hall, Looking Glass and Sony demonstrated each of their holographic displays, providing other alternatives for 3D.

VR content

As with all new technologies, adoption takes time. For an experience that requires art, technology, and operation to get right, it's even more so. At SIGGRAPH, several VR experiences were played back to back to complete a one-hour session.

Quest Pro is already one of the best headsets when it comes to fitting and weight balance. It holds true that different audiences may have different tolerances before they feel motion sick. Several experiences were produced with this in mind. More sitting still for audiences, unfortunately, means not just less chance of getting motion sickness but also a closer experience to watching a standard 2D video (in a VR scene, users literally were placed in a 3D living room watching a 2D video on TV).

If one ever ponders "Why use VR?", it may help to remember that storytelling with one additional dimension is still a wide open field; it takes more talent and more consistent investment dollars. We've seen techniques of volumetric capture, 360 videos, and having users use the controllers to control objects in the scene over the past ten years. Perhaps next year we will see fewer aliasing graphics and more storytelling methods deviating from film. We are on the path from good to great.

Author's bio

Kari Wu is a Senior Technical Product Manager at Unity Technologies, the leading platform for creating real-time interactive 3D content. Previously, she was an entrepreneur focused on augmented and virtual reality. Kari founded FilmIt, a startup enabling users without formal training to film professional-looking videos using augmented reality and automated editing solutions.

Born in Taiwan and raised across cultures, Kari brings a global vision to her work. Her experience consulting businesses in South Korea and Taiwan, and living in Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, gives her a unique ability to see from multiple perspectives. From immigrant to entrepreneur to tech leader, Kari's lifelong curiosity has driven her journey of evolving identities and careers. Kari earned her MBA and MS in Media Ventures from Boston University.

Author, Kari Wu