Light Field Blender: Designing Optics and Rendering Methods for See-Through and Aerial Near-Eye Display
In this study, we propose a novel head-mounted display (HMD) design for near-eye light field display which achieves a see-through and wide field of view for augmented reality. In the past years, many optical elements such as half-mirror, beamsplitter, and waveguide were employed for an optical see-through display. We use a transmissive mirror device (TMD) instead of conventional optical elements. A TMD consists of numerous micro-mirrors and is usually used for real imaging system in the mid-air. We introduce a new method for the TMD plate in order to extend the previous near-eye display to the see-through display. We achieve a wide field of view and comfortable viewing by creating a point light source with a micro-lens array. Our configuration is very simple and consists of a LCD for the image source, a micro-lens array to provide the light field, and a TMD plate to provide the aerial image in front of the eye. We construct a prototype see-through display including a fabricated HMD. We verify the design of our prototype using simulations and experiments, and further discuss the challenges in building a novel near-eye, see-through display.
Kazuki Otao, Yuta Itoh, Hiroyuki Osone, Kazuki Takazawa, Shunnosuke Kataoka and Yoichi Ochiai
University of Tsukuba, Pixie Dust Technologies, Inc., National Institute of Technology, Tokuyama College
大峠和基, 伊藤優太, 大曽根宏幸, 高澤和希, 片岡駿之介, 落合陽一
筑波大学, ピクシーダストテクノロジーズ株式会社, 徳山高専
