Tomas Sluka (CREAL) on the Power of Light Field Displays for AR Glasses

AR Show with Jason McDowall

Tomas Sluka is the CEO and co-founder of CREAL, a Swiss technology startup that developed and commercializes a radically new type of display that brings natural focal depth to a truly 3D visual experience within Augmented Reality.

The inspiration for CREAL originated with the first commercial VR and AR headsets back in 2014. Like many others, Tomas suffered from very strong eye-strain and lack of immersion. He realized that the problem came from nonexistent focal depth in the 3D imagery. Since then, he and his growing team have been working to solve these problems and dramatically improve the visual experience.

Prior to founding CREAL, Tomas worked as a research engineer at CERN’s particle detectors and as a researcher at EPFL on the development of electronic nano-devices. He earned a PhD in Mechatronics, is a co-/author of over 50 scientific publications—multiple in top-ranking journals—as well as 10 patent applications, and is a regular speaker at prestigious conferences.

In this conversation, we talk about the visual discomfort many of us feel, called vergence accommodation conflict, in today’s AR and VR devices. Tomas describes how our eyes work and the difference between natural 3D and the stereo 3D we get in today’s devices.

We discuss light fields, how CREAL is able to achieve them, and the implication on the display technology. We go on to discuss early applications of the technology, the path to lightfield AR glasses, and Tomas’s journey as a founder.

You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com.