Enriching our perception of real life informatively yet imaginatively is what augmented reality – or simply AR – promises us. The range of potential applications is practically unlimited! But first a look at how specialty glass perfectly fuses reality and digital worlds into one.
Challenge
The challenge? Achieving a perfect symbiosis
Technology flourishes best when it feels completely natural. As for AR glasses, they are at their best when they can blend digital worlds with reality – without the hindrance of frames or distortions while providing crystal-clear images even during daylight. This is the point when augmented reality has the potential to ingeniously broaden our lives.
Education
Industry
Entertainment
Communication
Innovation
How can optical glass be developed to deliver an unparalleled AR experience?
With over 130 years of passion for glass.
The result is SCHOTT RealView® glass wafers made of high-purity specialty glass, which can optimally integrate digital content into the real world.
Brilliant images all the time
The colors must glow during daylight as well. Due to their crystal-clear purity, SCHOTT RealView® glass wafers help to create a brilliant, bright visualization, which allows for unrestricted usage without compromising battery life.
RAZOR SHARP
A crisp and high contrast image with natural brilliant color allows us to perceive our environment as reality. The key term here is “total thickness variation,” which, thanks to an innovative manufacturing process, ensures that SCHOTT RealView® glass wafers are especially thin. This has allowed SCHOTT to achieve a virtually perfect surface wafer with a precise surface roughness right down to the atom – for a projection with the highest resolution possible.
FIELD OF VIEW ENSURES
OPTIMAL VISION
Real and digital images meld together seamlessly when the projection covers the field of view. SCHOTT RealView® glass wafers have been designed so that the manufacturers of AR glasses can double the virtual field of view of their products for a more intense AR experience.
FORM FACTOR
Comfort is something everyone desires in their daily lives and thanks to the latest in material handling processes, the SCHOTT RealView® glass wafers are extremely slender and light, yet very sturdy.
Light
weight
weight
WAFER
THICKNESS
THICKNESS
STRENGTH &
STABILITY
STABILITY
The production process of SCHOTT RealView®
Our development and production sites in Germany, Switzerland and China are prepared to deliver our outstanding optical SCHOTT RealView® glass wafers in the best quality and high quantity.
1
The production of SCHOTT’s optical glass has a footprint of more than 130 years. It starts with a carefully selected variety of ingredients.
2
Before ramping up mass production, SCHOTT researchers are executing a huge number of test melts.
3
SCHOTT RealView® high-index glass wafers are made of optical glass, mass-produced by SCHOTT in Germany.
4
After cutting the raw glass into thin glass wafers, a lapping process follows.
5
A very fine polishing process ensures best surface qualities.
6
Now the wafers are prepared for the cleaning room.
7
The wafers are dried with the power of light.
8
With its unique optical coating added, the raw glass becomes a SCHOTT RealView® high-index glass wafer for AR devices.
9
During a complex quality inspection the wafers’ technical specs are checked.
10
SCHOTT RealView® high-index glass wafers - ready for shipment to innovating AR device manufacturers around the globe.
11
SCHOTT RealView® high-index glass wafers bring augmented reality to life.
12
SCHOTT RealView® glass wafers are made from optical glass with a high refractive index, enabling a wider field of view (FOV) in AR devices.
People
“Today, glass is our window into virtual worlds. For augmented reality, our innovative SCHOTT RealView® glass wafers provide the perfect link for merging these worlds into one.”
— Dr. Ruediger Sprengard, Head of Augmented Reality,
Advanced Optics
“Enlightened digitalization is about
understanding the internet beyond the technology and devices we use to connect. Digitalization transforms
both society and businesses into a resonating body of relationships, bonds and emotions.”
— Mathias Horx, Trend- & Future Scientist
Next
AR has the power to revolutionize the world as we know it today
According to the representative survey survey “AR Monitor 2018,” more than half of all respondents want to use AR for everyday support in the future.
This new form of visualization can support us in so many ways :
From helping medical students learn with virtual human bodies to machine supervisors who receive visual operational support, or in live discussions with colleagues or friends from other ends of the world who appear as holograms in our homes or offices or even at a barbecue with friends, AR has what it takes to revolutionize the world as we currently know it.
Let´s create a new reality.
By producing unique high-index glass wafers as a key component for Augmented Reality devices,
we enable product engineers and designers to bring the user experience to the next level.
