There's no question that virtual reality headsets have gotten a lot more immersive in recent years, but you don't have to talk to too many people who've tried them to find a few that have gotten a bit queasy after spending some time detached from reality. While VR hardware makers themselves are busy trying to further reduce lag and take other measures to address what's become known as "VR sickness," a team of Stanford researchers say they've now developed a prototype headset of their own that promises a "dramatically more natural virtual reality experience."

The key development, as the researchers explain in a news release, is the use of a light-field stereoscope that they say creates an image that's more akin to a hologram projected in front of each eye than a 2D image on a screen. In the prototype, that's accomplished with two transparent LCDs stacked on top of each other with a spacer in-between, which the researchers say lets the wearer focus on different parts of the image at will and experience a greater sense of depth.

The important side effect of that is that as the image and sense of movement become more natural, the feelings of nausea and headaches are reduced. As they note, that's especially important for things like robotic surgery controlled through a VR interface, which could have someone wearing a headset for hours at a time. What's more, while the current system is still just a prototype, the researchers say it was built entirely using off the shelf parts, which could potentially speed up its adoption.

You can get a closer look at the prototype in the video below.

[via SlashGear]