Professor Gordon Wetzstein and his team in the Stanford Computational Imaging Lab are working on bringing [virtual reality] even closer to reality by creating state-of-the-art virtual technologies for lightweight spectacles.

“We’re working on not just bringing an image to your eye but bringing an experience to your eye that is indistinguishable from the real world,” says Gordon.

To render a three-dimensional image that looks like the real world, the team has been developing holographic displays. These miniature display systems are embedded into a pair of glasses and work by manipulating light waves rather than pixels. Intelligent software adjusts those waves so the eyes can perceive real depth and virtual objects blend seamlessly with the real world.

Among other projects that converge physical sciences with artificial intelligence, the team has also been making an eye tracker that’s small and compact. These low-power sensors track exactly where the eye is looking in real time to render a detailed image in that spot – this allows technologies to have lower details where the eye isn’t looking, thus saving energy while keeping the view sharp.

Gordon states, “We are closer to a tiny and lightweight display system that can be embedded in the frames of eyeglasses to give users a very natural, perceptually realistic experience.”

• Original article published in the Stanford Report, ‘One surprising fact about smart glasses,’ June 25, 2025.