Headset Visual Displacer for Motion Lag Reduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Headsets used in virtual reality and similar applications often experience lag between user motion and visual rendering, leading to vertigo and motion sickness due to the delay in updating the visual scene, which existing technologies struggle to fully address without compromising rendering quality.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a visual displacer within the headset that physically displaces the visual content relative to user motion, using actuators, prisms, or lenses, to maintain the visual's position relative to a stationary reference point, reducing the perceived delay and lag.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Stability of the object's composition
If the scene renderer updates the visual at a consistent framerate (e.g., 100 Hz), then the rendering stability is maintained, but a perceivable delay (lag) occurs between user motion and visual update
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary action by physically displacing the display before the scene renderer completes the visual update. When motion is detected, the display is shifted in the opposite direction of the motion, anticipating the need to maintain visual stability. This preliminary displacement occurs faster than the rendering pipeline can produce updated visuals, effectively compensating for the upcoming lag without waiting for the renderer to catch up.
2Loss of time
If the display is physically displaced to counter user motion, then the perceivable delay is reduced, but the device complexity increases due to additional actuators or optical components
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the traditional mechanical approach of moving the entire headset or using complex multi-axis actuators with a simpler optical substitution. By using prisms or lenses to induce diffraction and apparent visual displacement, the system achieves motion compensation without the need for heavy mechanical moving parts. This optical substitution reduces device complexity while maintaining the effectiveness of motion counter-displacement.
3Speed
If rapid acceleration occurs (e.g., quick head turn), then the user motion is captured, but the discrepancy between user motion and perceived scene is amplified
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies preliminary anti-action by detecting user motion and immediately displacing the display in the opposite direction before the scene renderer can update the visual. This counter-displacement creates an anti-action that opposes the harmful effect of lag amplification during rapid acceleration. The display moves against the direction of head rotation, effectively canceling out the perceived lag and preventing motion sickness even during quick head turns.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach reduces or eliminates motion sickness and vertigo by minimizing the delay between user motion and visual update, allowing for more complex rendering processes without sacrificing aesthetic quality or increasing computational burden.
Implementation Method 1
Such displacement may be achieved, e.g., by actuators that physically relocate the display along various axes
Implementation Method 2
by a prism or mirror that projects the visual onto the display with various degrees of displacement
Implementation Method 3
by a lens that induces various forms of diffraction that cause a visual to appear at a controllably displaced location
Data Source
AI summary
Many headset devices, such as virtual reality helmets, present visuals that respond to the user's motion, such that a rotation of the user's head causes the visual to be re-rendered from a correspondingly rotated perspective. The lag between the user's motion and the updated rendering from the new perspective may be perceivable even at high framerates, and may induce unpleasant feelings such as vertigo. Instead, headset devices may respond to detected motion by identifying a displacement of the physical location of the visual that causes it to maintain a physical position relative to a stationary reference point. The display is operatively coupled with a displacer, such as actuators or a projection adjustment, that are engaged to displace the display according to the identified displacement and maintain a physical location of the visual relative to the stationary reference point (e.g., until the visual is re-rendered from the updated perspective).