Display System Image Quality

Abstract : High performance aircraft employ several types of display systems including panel-mounted cathode-ray tube (CRT) displays, head-up displays (HUDs) and helmet-mounted displays (HMDs). These may be usd to produce imagery from onboard sensors or to provide information in a symbolic format. There are a number of parameters that are used to characterize these displays such as resolution, contrast ratio, luminance, number of gray shades, line rate, interlace ratio, luminance, number of gray shades, line rate, interlace ratio, bandwidth, and modulation transfer function. In the case of the HUDs and HMDs, there are other parameters that further describe the display such as distortion, transmittance, field of view, exit pupil diameter, vergence, and field curvature. This paper will describe these systems, the measurement of various parameters, and how they affect the quality of the display system. In addition, methods will be presented that combine the display parameters with human visual system characteristics to produce image quality metrics that are related to operator performance.