Oculus VR is announcing they have acquired Surreal Vision as part of its Oculus Research group.

Surreal Vision is best known as being one of the top computer vision teams in the world focused on real-time 3D scene reconstruction. The acquisition means Oculus VR will hopefully be able to enable a new level of presence and telepresence within its Oculus Rift, meaning you can be somewhere without actually being there.

This acquisition makes it appear as if Oculus may be heading into the world of mixed reality, which may allow the Rift to act more like a Microsoft’s HoloLens project. With the Rift being a completely enclosed headset, Oculus is going to need to emulate the world outside of the headset as best they can, which is where Surreal Vision comes into play. The team is going to need to capture the reconstruct the real world within a virtual environment to the extent where a user wouldn’t be able to distinguish between either experience.