Facebook buy Surreal Vison, a company founded by three ex DoC PhD students.

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Image of lady wearing Oculus Virtual Reality goggles

A virtual reality company founded by three ex PhD students from Imperial College London has been bought by Facebook to combine with Oculus.

Surreal Vision Founders

Surreal Vision was founded by Richard Newcombe, Renato Salas-Moreno and Steven Lovegrove all ex DoC PhD students  supervised by Professor Andrew Davison in the Robot Vision Group.

Their company specialises in real-time 3D scene reconstruction to create accurate representations of the real world and allow users to interact with real-world objects from within VR. 

The technology  allows users to interact in a computerised version of the real world and aims to make this version so real that it is impossible to distinguish between the two.

This could allow people to hold business meetings as if they are in the same room when in fact they are located in different countries - a process known as “telepresence”.

The technology being developed by Surreal Vision will lead to VR and augmented reality systems that can be used day or night and either indoors or outdoors. “They will open the door to true telepresence, where people can visit anyone, anywhere,” the founders said.

Their techniques promise a model of reality that “feels real, creating a new, mixed reality that brings together the virtual and real worlds”.

The founders say that significant challenges remain, as the accuracy and quality of the continuously updating 3D reconstruction must be almost perfect: “When we cross these seminal thresholds, users will perceive the virtual world as truly real – and that is the experience we’re driving toward.”

Richard, Renato and Steven will join the Oculus Research team in Redmond, Washington.

Reporter

Royston Ingram

Royston Ingram
Department of Computing

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Contact details

Email: press.office@imperial.ac.uk
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