Patent Application
20080024391
The present invention will hereinafter be described in conjunction with the following drawing figures, wherein like numerals denote like elements, and
The following detailed description of the invention is merely exemplary in nature and is not intended to limit the invention or the application and uses of the invention. Furthermore, there is no intention to be bound by any theory presented in the preceding background of the invention or the following detailed description of the invention.
Commercial binocular eyewear are aligned mechanically at manufacture and some misalignment is common. By measuring the optical misalignment, e.g., at the factory or subsequently at a sales or repair facility, and storing misalignment parameters such as vertical, horizontal, rotation, and magnification, in memory integral to the eyewear, correction may be made automatically without user interaction to bring the alignment within desired limits. A first image is presented to a first eye and a second image is presented to a second eye. A microcomputer may adjust at least one of the first and second images, e.g., by shifting or rotating pixels, in accordance with the stored parameters. Additionally, the optical misalignment may be measured at a plurality of temperatures and humidity with the misalignment at each temperature and humidity stored. Subsequently, the misalignment at a current temperature and/or humidity may be adjusted in accordance with the stored values.
Referring to
When an image, which typically would comprise a video stream, is received by the image receiving device 104, it is transmitted to the microcomputer 126 via first connector 132. The image is then transmitted to the display driver 130 via second connector 134, and to first and second microdrivers 112 and 116 via third connector 136 and fourth connector 138, respectively, for viewing.
When the binocular display device 100 is fabricated, misalignment parameters are stored in the memory 128. When an image is to be displayed, the microcomputer 126 retrieves these misalignment parameters from the memory 128 and instructs the display driver 130 as appropriate to modify the image for display by the first microdisplay 112 and/or the second microdisplay 116 to compensate for the misalignment of the binocular display device 100.
The illustration shown in
Mechanical means of alignment may involve mechanical adjustment of either the image source, for example a microdisplay, or by adjustment of optical components between the image source and the eye, for example a lens. Because of the very small image alignment tolerances, the required mechanical adjustment may be prohibitively expensive to execute during or after manufacture of the device. The mechanical precision required may be on the order of 1 micron to 1 mm depending on the mechanism used to make the adjustment. Utilizing only mechanical alignment has limitations. One limitation is that it can be difficult or expensive to realign the images after the device is manufactured because it may require disassembly and of the eyewear display and for some components to be debonded. Also, it is not possible to correct for misalignment that may result from changes in temperature at which the device operates.
Electronic image alignment can overcome some of the limitations of mechanical image alignment. Horizontal or vertical image alignment of the image presented to both eyes is accomplished by shifting pixels in one or both of the images presented by the display drivers 130. In the chart below, it is shown that by shifting an image by one pixel shifts results in an angular change of 1.5 to 3.75 minutes of arc for the selected resolutions. This enables the very tight vertical and horizontal image alignment tolerances to be met simply through the electronic image adjustment. This chart uses values for a typical eyewear display with a 25 degree diagonal field of view with a 4:3 aspect ratio for the image.
Although adjustments for vertical and horizontal image alignment can be accomplished by shifting the image on a microdisplay, obtaining proper alignment with respect to rotation and magnification may be more complex manipulation of the initial image. A microcomputer may be required to calculate the corrected image.
A flow chart of the steps implemented by the microcomputer 126 is shown in
While at least one exemplary embodiment has been presented in the foregoing detailed description of the invention, it should be appreciated that a vast number of variations exist. It should also be appreciated that the exemplary embodiment or exemplary embodiments are only examples, and are not intended to limit the scope, applicability, or configuration of the invention in any way. Rather, the foregoing detailed description will provide those skilled in the art with a convenient road map for implementing an exemplary embodiment of the invention, it being understood that various changes may be made in the function and arrangement of elements described in an exemplary embodiment without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims.
