Computer vision is at the heart of delivering comfortable and incredible virtual reality. Over the last two years, we’ve focused on bringing together the best and brightest in the space to solve some of the hardest vision challenges facing VR.

Today, we’re pleased to announce three key computer vision acquisitions joining the Oculus team.

Nimble VR (formerly 3Gear Systems)

Nimble VR was founded in 2012 by Rob Wang, Chris Twigg, and Kenrick Kin. Since then, they’ve been developing machine learning and computer vision capabilities to enable high-quality, low-latency skeletal hand tracking, which has the potential to be part of a great VR user experience.

13th Lab

The 13th Lab team has been focused on developing an efficient and accurate real-time 3D reconstruction framework. The ability to acquire accurate 3D models of the real-world can enable all sorts of new applications and experiences, like visiting a one-to-one 3D model of the pyramids in Egypt or the Roman Colosseum in VR.

Chris Bregler

Chris is an expert in the motion capture space. His recent projects include visual tracking for The Lone Ranger and Star Trek Into Darkness movies, both of which were nominated for the 2014 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

Chris has spent the last 11 years as a professor of Computer Science at New York University. Prior to NYU he was on the faculty at Stanford University and worked for several companies including Hewlett Packard, Interval, Disney Feature Animation, and LucasFilm’s Industrial Light and Magic. Chris will be directing a vision research team for Oculus Research.

Nimble VR, 13th Lab, and Chris will all be winding down their existing projects to focus on VR full-time at Oculus as part of both product engineering and Oculus Research. Please join us in welcoming them to the team!

We’re always on the lookout for more phenomenal engineers and researchers interested in tackling the unsolved CV problems that move us closer to consumer VR. You can check out job listings for Oculus and Oculus Research on the oculus.com Careers page: https://www1.oculus.com/careers/.

If you’re interested in learning more about the computer vision work we’re doing at Oculus, we recommend this presentation by Oculus’ Michael Abrash, Chief Scientist and Head of Oculus Research, and Dov Katz, Head of Oculus CV, from earlier this year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxbh-TM5yNc

— The Oculus Team