Design and prototype of an augmented reality display with per-pixel mutual occlusion capability.

State-of-the-art optical see-through head-mounted displays for augmented reality (AR) applications lack mutual occlusion capability, which refers to the ability to render correct light blocking relationship when merging digital and physical objects, such that the virtual views appear to be ghost-like and lack realistic appearance. In this paper, using off-the-shelf optical components, we present the design and prototype of an AR display which is capable of rendering per-pixel mutual occlusion. Our prototype utilizes a miniature organic light emitting display coupled with a liquid crystal on silicon type spatial light modulator to achieve an occlusion capable AR display offering a 30° diagonal field of view and an angular resolution of 1.24 arcminutes, with an optical performance of > 0.4 contrast over the full field at the Nquist frequency of 24.2 cycles/degree. We experimentally demonstrate a monocular prototype achieving >100:1 dynamic range in well-lighted environments.

[1]  Hong Hua,et al.  Design of a polarized head-mounted projection display using ferroelectric liquid-crystal-on-silicon microdisplays. , 2008, Applied optics.

[2]  Hong Hua,et al.  A high-resolution optical see-through head-mounted display with eyetracking capability. , 2013, Optics express.

[3]  Hong Hua,et al.  Occlusion capable optical see-through head-mounted display using freeform optics , 2012, 2012 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR).

[4]  Yongtian Wang,et al.  Design of a wide-angle, lightweight head-mounted display using free-form optics tiling. , 2011, Optics letters.

[5]  Eric W. Tatham.  Technical opinion: getting the best of both real and virtual worlds , 1999, CACM.

[6]  J. Rolland,et al.  Head-worn displays: a review , 2006, Journal of Display Technology.

[7]  Hong Hua,et al.  Optical see-through head-mounted display with occlusion capability , 2013, Defense, Security, and Sensing.

[8]  Yongtian Wang,et al.  Design of an optical see-through head-mounted display with a low f-number and large field of view using a freeform prism. , 2009, Applied optics.

[9]  Hong Hua,et al.  High-resolution optical see-through multi-focal-plane head-mounted display using freeform optics. , 2014, Optics express.

[10]  Henry Fuchs,et al.  Computational augmented reality eyeglasses , 2013, 2013 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR).

[11]  Eric W. Tatham.  Getting the best of both real and virtual worlds , 1999 .

[12]  Mark Billinghurst,et al.  An occlusion capable optical see-through head mount display for supporting co-located collaboration , 2003, The Second IEEE and ACM International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, 2003. Proceedings..

[13]  Jannick P. Rolland,et al.  A compact optical see-through head-worn display with occlusion support , 2004, Third IEEE and ACM International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality.