Head-worn adaptive display

An eyepiece includes a mechanical frame adapted to secure a lens and an image source facility above the lens. The image source facility includes an LED, a planar illumination facility and a reflective display. The planar illumination facility converts a light beam from the LED received on a side of the planar illumination facility into a top emitting planar light source, uniformly illuminates the reflective display, and is substantially transmissive to allow reflected light to pass through towards a beam splitter. The beam splitter is positioned to receive the image light and to reflect a portion onto a mirrored surface. The mirrored surface is positioned and shaped to reflect the image light into an eye of a user of the eyepiece thereby providing an image within a field of view, the mirrored surface further adapted to be partially transmissive within an area of image reflectance.

Eyepiece with uniformly illuminated reflective display

An advantage of some aspects of the invention is to provide a virtual image display apparatus in which occurrence of luminance spots is suppressed to improve efficiency of use of illumination light. In the virtual image display apparatus of the invention, an optical-directivity changing section forms a non-uniform distribution concerning the directivity of image lights GL emitted from an image display device. Therefore, even when an angle of a light beam emitted from the image display device and effectively captured into the eye EY of an observer is substantially different depending on a position of the image display device, it is possible to form the image lights GL having directivity corresponding to such an angle characteristic of light beam capturing. It is possible to suppress occurrence of luminance spots to improve efficiency of use of illumination light.

Virtual image display apparatus

See-through display with an optical assembly including a wedge-shaped illumination system

An optical see-through head-mounted display (OST-HMD), which enables optical superposition of digital information onto the direct view of the physical world and maintains see-through vision to the real world, is a vital component in an augmented reality (AR) system. A key limitation of the state-of-the-art OST-HMD technology is the well-known accommodation-convergence mismatch problem caused by the fact that the image source in most of the existing AR displays is a 2D flat surface located at a fixed distance from the eye. In this paper, we present an innovative approach to OST-HMD designs by combining the recent advancement of freeform optical technology and microscopic integral imaging (micro-InI) method. A micro-InI unit creates a 3D image source for HMD viewing optics, instead of a typical 2D display surface, by reconstructing a miniature 3D scene from a large number of perspective images of the scene. By taking advantage of the emerging freeform optical technology, our approach will result in compact, lightweight, goggle-style AR display that is potentially less vulnerable to the accommodation-convergence discrepancy problem and visual fatigue. A proof-of-concept prototype system is demonstrated, which offers a goggle-like compact form factor, non-obstructive see-through field of view, and true 3D virtual display.

A 3D integral imaging optical see-through head-mounted display

— A full-color eyewear display with over 85% see-through transmittance with a 16° horizontal field of view was developed. Very low color crosstalk, less than 0.008 Δu′v′ uniformity, and 120% NTSC color gamut were achieved. Waveguides with two in- and out-coupling reflection volume hologram elements enabled a simple configuration that has an optical engine beside the user's temples. The reflection volume hologram elements used on the waveguides realized a small thickness of 1.4 mm for each waveguide, and an out-coupling reflection volume hologram used as an optical combiner contributed a high see-through transmittance of 85% due to its wavelength selectivity. However, there are technical challenges in achieving a reasonable screen size and quality color images with optics that utilize holographic waveguides because holograms have large chromatic dispersions compared to conventional optical elements such as lenses and mirrors. Approaches to overcome these issues are described.

A full-color eyewear display using planar waveguides with reflection volume holograms

A full color eyewear display with over 85% see-through transmittance and 2500cd/m2 brightness was developed. Very low color crosstalk, less than 0.008 Δu'v' uniformity and 120% NTSC color gamut were achieved. Waveguides with two in- and out-coupling hologram elements enabled simple configuration with side-mounted microdisplays.

8.4: Distinguished Paper: A Full Color Eyewear Display using Holographic Planar Waveguides

An illumination optical device includes a light source, a light pipe guiding illumination light from the light source, a diffuser arranged on an emitting surface side of the light pipe. A width of the emitting surface of the light pipe in the horizontal direction is set greater than a width of an illuminated object, and a width of the emitting surface of the light pipe in the vertical direction is set smaller than a width of the illuminated object.

Illumination optical device and virtual image display

High-luminance (~1000cd/m2) and high-uniformity see-through eyewear display has been developed by using two in-coupling and one out-coupling reflection volume holograms on optical waveguide glass. This novel volume hologram design achieves an ideal eyewear display for augmented reality with high transparency, high luminance and low power in various environments.

15.2: High-Luminance See-Through Eyewear Display with Novel Volume Hologram Waveguide Technology

An optical pickup has a light-emitting device having a first light emitter and a second light emitter which emit a first laser beam and a second laser beam, respectively, a beam splitter plate, a collimator lens which converts the first laser beam and the second laser beam into a parallel beam, and a light-detecting device. The first laser beam has an optical axis aligned with an optical axis of an objective lens, and the second laser beam has an optical axis displaced off the optical axis of the objective lens. The second light emitter is placed in a position where the angle α of incidence of the second laser beam on the beam splitter plate is greater than the angle θ of incidence of the first laser beam on the beam splitter plate, thereby reducing the amount of generated aberrations for increased performance.

Kazuma Aiki

Papers

A full-color eyewear display using planar waveguides with reflection volume holograms

8.4: Distinguished Paper: A Full Color Eyewear Display using Holographic Planar Waveguides

Illumination optical device and virtual image display

15.2: High-Luminance See-Through Eyewear Display with Novel Volume Hologram Waveguide Technology

Optical pickup and disk drive apparatus