Head-Mounted Display Adjustable Optics for Gaze-Stable Imaging
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Solution Overview
Problem
Head mounted displays face limitations in image fidelity and computing power, particularly with high-resolution displays, due to insufficient bandwidth and computing capacity, leading to issues with image stability and resolution when gaze direction changes.
Innovation Solution
A head mounted display system with a tracking system to determine gaze direction, an optical system with adjustable optical devices, and processing circuitry to maintain image position on the retina despite gaze changes, combined with a camera system to control camera position based on gaze direction, ensuring high-resolution image stability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If high-resolution display devices are used to improve image fidelity, then image quality is improved, but computing power and bandwidth requirements increase beyond what the head mounted display can provide
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies foveated rendering to display different resolutions in different regions of the visual field. The central foveal region receives high-resolution imagery while peripheral regions receive lower resolution imagery. This allows the system to improve image fidelity where the user is looking without requiring the computational resources needed for uniformly high resolution across the entire display, thus resolving the contradiction between image fidelity and computing power requirements.
2Measurement precision
If high-resolution display devices are used to improve image fidelity, then image quality is improved, but bandwidth requirements increase beyond available capacity
Solution Approach 1:
By implementing foveated rendering, the system transmits high-resolution image data only to the central foveal region while using lower resolution data for peripheral regions. This significantly reduces the total bandwidth required compared to transmitting uniformly high-resolution imagery across the entire display, while still maintaining high image fidelity in the user's focal point of attention.
3Measurement precision
If the image resolution is increased, then image fidelity is improved, but image stability decreases when gaze direction changes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a dynamic foveal region that tracks the user's gaze direction in real-time. As the user moves their eyes, the high-resolution foveal rendering region dynamically shifts to follow the gaze, while the rest of the visual field maintains lower resolution. This dynamic adaptation ensures that high image resolution is always maintained in the relevant region without requiring the entire image to be stabilized at high resolution, thus resolving the contradiction between image resolution and image stability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses eye tracking to provide feedback about the user's gaze direction, which then controls the dynamic repositioning of the high-resolution foveal region. This feedback loop allows the display to adapt to gaze changes and maintain both high resolution and stability by concentrating computational resources on the current focal point rather than attempting to stabilize the entire high-resolution image.
Data Source
AI summary
A head mounted display for use in a virtual reality, mixed reality or augmented reality system comprises a display device configured to display an image, a tracking system configured to determine a gaze direction of a user's eye and an optical system configured to project the image into the user's eye, the optical system comprising an adjustable optical device; and processing circuitry configured to control the adjustable optical device based on the gaze direction of the user's eye such that a position of the image projected into the user's eye is unchanged, when the gaze direction of the user's eye changes.