from the there's-light-at-the-end-of-the-pinhole dept.
From the Berkley Newscenter:
The researchers are developing computer algorithms to compensate for an individual's visual impairment, and creating vision-correcting displays that enable users to see text and images clearly without wearing eyeglasses or contact lenses. The technology could potentially help hundreds of millions of people who currently need corrective lenses to use their smartphones, tablets and computers. One common problem, for example, is presbyopia, a type of farsightedness in which the ability to focus on nearby objects is gradually diminished as the aging eyes' lenses lose elasticity.
More importantly, the displays could one day aid people with more complex visual problems, known as high order aberrations, which cannot be corrected by eyeglasses, said Brian Barsky, UC Berkeley professor of computer science and vision science, and affiliate professor of optometry.
The UC Berkeley researchers teamed up with Gordon Wetzstein and Ramesh Raskar, colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to develop their latest prototype of a vision-correcting display. The setup adds a printed pinhole screen sandwiched between two layers of clear plastic to an iPod display to enhance image sharpness. The tiny pinholes are 75 micrometers each and spaced 390 micrometers apart. Researchers placed a printed pinhole array mask on top of an iPod touch as part of their prototype display.
The research team will present this computational light field display on Aug. 12 at the International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, or SIGGRAPH, in Vancouver, Canada.
(Score: 2) by yellowantphil on Thursday July 31 2014, @04:02AM
Aren't there some small 3-D displays that don't require glasses? If you can send a separate image to each eye using those displays, can the images be adjusted so that they form a 2-D image that corrects certain vision problems?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by umafuckitt on Thursday July 31 2014, @06:11AM
Just sending different images to each eye isn't going to help most vision problems. The only one I can imagine it helping is strabismus [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Thursday July 31 2014, @12:40PM
I think it might also help people with markedly different degrees of impairment in their eyes, like me. Vision on my right side is impaired enough that I should wear glasses for distances and reading, but because I'd instinctively adjusted to rely on the normal vision on my left side as the right one weakened, I had no clue I had a problem until I was tested a few years ago in my early 30s when I renewed my driver's license.
(I say my right/left "side" as I don't know whether my right eye itself is abnormal, or if it's because the optical processing part of my brain has an unexplained "white squiggle" on MRI scans.)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 31 2014, @04:05AM
Or... do they really expect one will switch from wearing eye-glasses to wearing a mobile phone for seeing the world around? (Google glass need not apply)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Redundant) by frojack on Thursday July 31 2014, @04:32AM
Well, I can tell you that when you get older trying to focus on small print on a cell phone can mean having to take off your glasses, or put them on just to read the phone. Even Bifocals only help so much, before you end up craning your neck to see out of the proper portion of the lens.
If you haven't experienced this yet, and you wear glasses, just wait. Your turn will come.
Personally, I doubt this is going to work, because it seems unlikely you can project a proper image from a fixed computer screen (let alone a mobile one) that will allow some near sighted person like myself see clearly at any variable distance.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Max Hyre on Saturday August 02 2014, @02:16PM
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday July 31 2014, @04:40AM
There is a practicality for people who need reading glasses only.They generally have to remove the readers when they're not doing things close up in order to see properly. It would be nice not to need to switch back and forth to use their phone or tablet.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 31 2014, @04:45AM
> What's wrong with wearing eyeglasses/lenses?
When people get to about 40 years old they tend to get far-sighted, it is called presbyopia. [wikipedia.org] That's why you can buy reading glasses for like $3/pair at every drugstore in the country. They don't need those glasses for anything but close-up reading like a book, computer screen or phone. So it is a PITA to carry them around in your pocket just to put on in order to read your phone.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Tork on Thursday July 31 2014, @04:52AM
I don't wear my glasses when I'm at home unless I'm working. If I could (cheaply...) get a monitor that was in focus when my glasses were off, it'd be more comfortable for me, I'd probably buy it. Also I like to read before going to sleep but I don't wear my glasses in bed.
What's wrong with being able to solve the problem on both ends? Heck, I'd love it if my smartphone was out of focus for everybody that's not on my prescription. Nobody else needs to read what's on my screen!
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday July 31 2014, @04:53AM
Wearing glasses while looking at a computer screen 40+ hours a week tends to induce eye strain. I speak from experience.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday July 31 2014, @07:52AM
Looking at a computer screen 40+ hours a week tends to induce eye strain even without glasses.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by skater on Thursday July 31 2014, @11:39AM
That's me. But work recently switched to a virtual desktop solution, and the problem is much worse for me now. I think the issue is that the picture is compressed (lossy), so nothing is as sharp as it should be. Additionally, there are random updates around the screen, so several times a day I'll be reading something on the screen, then I'll see something else change on the screen, distracting me, but it was just a refresh that clears up a part of the screen that was badly compressed when it was first displayed. It's miserable. At the end of the day my eyes are dead tired and I just want to close them for the drive home (not a good idea, obviously).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 31 2014, @03:34PM
That is fucked up. Whoever set up a virtual desktop with lossy compression is an idiot. VNC and RTP are lossless and work fine for text over even just 10mbps.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Thursday July 31 2014, @05:34AM
yes, remove your glasses/contacts while looking at the screen, then put them back on/in to look around.
even better, get a computer monitor with this 'feature' so nobody else can tell what you are looking at [probably want to wear headphones for the moaning]
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday July 31 2014, @02:59PM
If this becomes the new privacy screen, even people with perfect vision will be buying contacts! Grab a pair of my -4.25s and nobody will be able to see a damn thing on your screen :)
If I start losing my near vision as I age, this will be brilliant to have. But for the moment, my computer/phone screens are damn near the only things I *can* read without my glasses! Been about 10 years since I could read the giant 'E' on the standard eye test -- last time I was given one I thought it was three separate lines!
(Score: 3, Informative) by opinionated_science on Thursday July 31 2014, @02:38PM
correcting vision with lenses works partly because our brains do some mathematics to make a composite image.
Cataract patients that have their corneas changed are given replacement. If different strength lenses are given for each eye, the patients visual cortex will make an infocus composite image.
There is a great deal we do not understand about vision...
(Score: 5, Funny) by martyb on Thursday July 31 2014, @12:50PM
tb;cr (too blurry; couldn't read)
=)
Wit is intellect, dancing.