Vision Augmentation via See-Through Displays and Optics

Optical see-through near-eye displays (OST-NEDs) is a key component for the augmented reality (AR) applications. Although this technology has not yet permeated enough in our life as virtual reality headsets do, both academia and industries are intensively exploring the potential of OST-NED technology. The issue of making an ultimate OST- NED lies in its constraints of the trade-off among important specifications such as between the field of view and the form factor. Nevertheless, the capability of OST-NED that can augment the user’s direct view shows us the potential to expand human vision capability aside from typical AR glasses applications. In this invited talk, I thus explore the concept of vision augmentation, future applications of OST-NED that can arbitrarily modulate our vision to assist our daily life. I will introduce our recent progress in augmented vision including smart eyeglasses, smart sunglasses, eyeglasses for color -blindness, and so on. I will also discuss how maintaining the feedback loop of eye measurement and dynamic display control would be important in realizing potential vision augmentation applications.