Shared Mixed Reality Viewing With Dynamic Focus Alignment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality technologies face challenges in providing realistic and comfortable 3D imaging experiences due to mismatches between accommodation and vergence cues, leading to user discomfort and strain.
Innovation Solution
A wearable system that tracks user eye vergence and accommodation to dynamically adjust the focus of projected virtual content, using a multi-plane or variable focus system to align with the user's natural focus, and employs a waveguide stack with varying depth planes to enhance depth perception.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional VR/AR/MR display systems present computer-generated virtual images, then virtual reality experiences are achieved, but mismatches between accommodation and vergence cues cause user discomfort and eye strain
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts the focus of projected virtual content by tracking user eye vergence and accommodation in real-time. The wearable system modifies focal planes on-the-fly to match the user's natural focus, making the display adaptive rather than static. This resolves the contradiction by allowing the system to maintain realistic virtual images while dynamically eliminating the harmful accommodation-vergence mismatch that causes eye strain.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes physical parameters of the optical display by varying focal planes to match the user's accommodation state. By adjusting the focal distance parameter dynamically based on tracked eye movements, the system aligns vergence and accommodation cues, thereby maintaining image realism while eliminating the harmful effects of parameter mismatch that cause discomfort.
2Ease of operation
If a wearable system tracks and dynamically adjusts focus to align vergence and accommodation cues, then user comfort is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The wearable system integrates multiple functions into a single device: it simultaneously tracks eye vergence, tracks accommodation, dynamically adjusts focal planes, and presents virtual content. By combining these functions in one universal platform, the system achieves improved user comfort while managing complexity through integration rather than separate components.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses the user's own eye movements and focus patterns as the control signal for adjustment. By tracking the user's natural vergence and accommodation, the system self-regulates the focal planes without requiring external control or complex user interaction, thereby improving comfort while keeping the control mechanism relatively simple.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If a multi-plane or variable focus system is used to align with user's natural focus, then accommodation-vergence mismatch is reduced, but device complexity and manufacturing difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The optical system is segmented into multiple discrete focal planes that can be independently controlled. By dividing the focus adjustment into separate planar layers, the system can present content at different depths with appropriate accommodation cues, reducing the harmful mismatch while managing complexity through modular optical elements rather than a single complex lens system.
Solution Approach 2:
The system adds the dimension of variable focal depth to the traditional 2D display. By introducing multiple focal planes along the optical axis (z-dimension), the system provides accommodation cues that match vergence cues, reducing the harmful mismatch. This dimensional addition is achieved through waveguide stacks and optical elements that enable focal plane variation without requiring entirely new system architecture.
4Reliability
If waveguide stack with varying depth planes is employed to enhance depth perception, then realism is improved, but manufacturing precision requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The waveguide stack implements local quality by providing different focal properties at different spatial locations and depths. Each waveguide layer is optimized for specific depth planes, with varying optical characteristics tailored to their function. This allows realistic depth perception through locally optimized optical elements rather than requiring uniform high precision across the entire waveguide structure, thereby reducing overall manufacturing precision requirements.
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
The system reduces eye strain and provides a more comfortable and realistic 3D viewing experience by aligning vergence and accommodation cues, enhancing the perception of depth and reducing physiological symptoms.
Implementation Method 1
A wearable system described herein employs a waveguide stack with varying depth planes to enhance depth perception
Implementation Method 2
A wearable system described herein employs a waveguide stack with varying depth planes to enhance depth perception
Data Source
AI summary
A mixed reality virtual environment is sharable among multiple users through the use of multiple view modes that are selectable by a presenter. Multiple users with wearable display systems may wish to view a common virtual object, which may be presented in a virtual room to any suitable number of users. A presentation may be controlled by a presenter using a presenter wearable system that leads multiple participants through information associated with the virtual object. Use of different viewing modes allows individual users to see different virtual content through their wearable display systems, despite being in a shared viewing space or alternatively, to see the same virtual content in different locations within a shared space.