Snapdragon 845: Immersing users in a brave new world of VR

Imagine what it'll be like when you can blur the lines of your physical and digital worlds, allowing you to experience unrestrained virtual reality (VR) and enhance what you see around you with augmented reality (AR).

Qualcomm discussed this at the Augmented World Expo earlier this year, "XR" is an emerging umbrella term that is already being used to encapsulate AR, VR, and everything in between.

XR is a mobile market that's gaining momentum as VR and AR markets may combine to create a $108 billion market by 2021, according to TechCrunch.

Recognising this, they've launched over 20 XR devices between standalone HMDs and XR-capable smartphones with customers.

They are also working closely with some of the world's most influential XR companies like Google, HTC Vive, and Oculus and are supporting Facebook and Samsung.

To make this possible, their new Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Mobile Platform integrates the latest Qualcomm Adreno 630 visual processing subsystem architecture which introduces outstanding integrated graphics, video, and display processing technologies with performance.

This can change the XR landscape by transforming entertainment, education, and social interaction into highly immersive experiences featuring intuitive interactions, stunning visuals, and realistic sounds.

Adreno 630 also features power efficiency, delivering 30% faster graphics performance, 30% better power efficiency, and more than twice as much display throughput compared to the previous generation.

Snapdragon 845 is the first mobile platform to enable six degrees of freedom (6DoF) head tracking with simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM).

When you're experiencing VR, you must be able to create and update a map of your physical environment in real-time, while simultaneously keep track of your location within it.

Utilising room-scale 6DoF with SLAM on the Snapdragon 845, users can see and avoid walls and obstacles in confined areas through advanced algorithms.

They can also understand the room's size, scan for objects in the room to avoid them, and integrate real-world objects into the virtual world.

Delivering up to 4 million pixels per eye, SLAM is managed across several heterogeneous engines including the Qualcomm Spectra 280 ISP, Qualcomm Hexagon 685 DSP, and Qualcomm Kryo 385 CPU on the Snapdragon 845.

SLAM is also an essential technology for AR to accurately position virtual objects in tracked scenes, helping to ensure correct visualisation and positioning in your real-world environment.