Software written for augmented
reality glasses creates and projects images for the healthy eye, giving a
wearer the feeling of depth. Being able to see with both eyes comes with a
perk: the ability to judge distance in 3D. People who’ve lost sight in one eye
can still see with the other, but they lack binocular depth perception. Some of
them could benefit from a pair of augmented reality glasses being built at the
University of Yamanashi in Japan that artificially introduces a feeling of
depth in a person’s healthy eye. The group, started out with a pair of
commercially available 3D glasses, the daintily named Wrap 920AR, manufactured
by Vuzix Corporation (Vuzix is also building another AR headset called the M100
that on first sight looks like quite the competitor to Google Glass). The Wrap
920AR looks like a pair of regular tinted glasses, but with small cameras
poking out of each lens. The lenses are transparent and the device, Vuzix
explains on its website, both captures and projects images, giving the wearer
of the device front-row seats to a 2D or 3D AR show transmitted from a
computer.
The group at Yamanashi created
software that makes use of the twin cameras. When a person puts the glasses on,
each camera scopes out the scene that each eye would see. The images are
funneled into software on a computer, which combines the perspective of both
cameras and creates a “defocus” effect. That is, some objects to stay in focus
while others stay out of focus, resulting in a feeling of depth. That version
of the scene in front of them is projected to the single healthy eye of the
wearer. 8 volunteers with two healthy eyes each tested the setup. They had one
task, to pick up and place a cylindrical peg in a groove in front of them. All
but one of the volunteers did this quicker when a composite image was projected
into one lens. The system isn’t quite ready to be taken for spin around town
yet. It’s bulky still, the creators write, and needs a computer by its side,
creating and projecting images in real time. But the creators admit such
computing power is likely to be found on mobile devices soon, and when it is,
they’ll be ready.
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