Digital Representations of Light/Sound Fields for Immersive Media [pdf] (opens in new tab)

"To capture physical environments human beings have sensors like eyes and ears."

Oh lord, I can just imagine the process that led to that opening observation! Still, it's not a bad thing to think about this, but... it felt a bit like that '10,000 Year WIPP Marker' thing. "This is not a place of honor." "Humans have eyes and ears."

That was a very in depth report, thanks for posting. The data rates will be challenging.

Here's a good panel discussion with Lytro and OTOY who are doing great stuff in this space. http://www.nabshow.com/video/will-future-vr-and-3d-capture-l...

At least someone is thinking about putting a standard around all of this -- at least it's JPEG and not MPEG-LA. I found it very interesting how broadly they specified the goals here.

Good review of current practices, though I personally reserve the use of the term 'light field' to representations that are explicitly encoding light rays, not geometry. But that's a pretty minor quibble, it's a really good, dense report.