Variable Resolution Eye Mounted Displays

• US 20150312560A1
• Filed: 01/06/2015
• Published: 10/29/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/08/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tectus Corporation
• Original Assignee: Spy Eye, LLC
• Inventors: Deering, Michael Frank, Huang, Alan
• Granted Patent: US 9,993,335 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: A61F 2/1602 Corrective lenses for use in addition to the natural lenses of the eyes or for pseudo-phakic eyes
• CPC Class Codes: A61F 2/1613 having special lens configurations, e.g. multipart lenses; having particular optical properties, e.g. pseudo-accommodative lenses, lenses having aberration corrections, diffractive lenses, lenses for variably absorbing electromagnetic radiation, lenses having variable focus
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 13/0085 employing wafer level optics
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 13/16 for use in conjunction with image converters or intensifiers , or for use with projectors, e.g. objectives for projection TV
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 2027/0196 having transparent supporting structure for display mounting, e.g. to a window or a windshield
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 27/0093 with means for monitoring data relating to the user, e.g. head-tracking, eye-tracking
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 27/0172 characterised by optical features
• CPC Class Codes: G02C 7/04 Contact lenses for the eyes disinfection or sterilisation of contact lenses A61L12/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/012 Head tracking input arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/013 Eye tracking input arrangements G06F3/015 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/001 using specific devices not provided for in groups G09G3/02 - G09G3/36, e.g. using an intermediate record carrier such as a film slide; Projection systems; Display of non-alphanumerical information, solely or in combination with alphanumerical information, e.g. digital display on projected diapositive as background slide projectors per se G03B23/00 = 42 HP
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/02 by tracing or scanning a light beam on a screen
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/3129 scanning a light beam on the display screen scanning a light beam on a screen in displays other than projection devices G09G3/02; scanning systems in general G02B26/10; projectors using laser light sources in general H04N9/3161
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/3197 using light modulating optical valves

Abstract

A display device (e.g., in a contact lens) is mounted on the eye. The eye mounted display contains multiple sub-displays, each of which projects light to different retinal positions within a portion of the retina corresponding to the sub-display. Additionally, a “locally uniform resolution” mapping may be used to model the variable resolution of the eye. Accordingly, various aspects of the display device may be based on the locally uniform resolution mapping. For example, the light emitted from the sub-displays may be based on the locally uniform resolution mapping.

Claims

1. An eye mounted display, comprised of multiple sub-displays, in which each sub display is formed by a flat multi-pixel light emitting display element, followed by a first lens element, followed by a second lens element, and optionally followed by additional lens elements, all parallel to the surface of the eye mounted display.

2. The eye mounted display of claim 1, wherein the first lens element is a positive lens, and the second lens element is a negative lens.

3. The eye mounted display of claim 2, further comprising a third lens element that performs ophthalmological correction.

4. The eye mounted display of claim 3, wherein the third lens element performs additional optical aberration reduction.

5. The eye mounted display of claim 4, wherein the third lens element also performs ophthalmological correction.

6. The eye mounted display of claim 1, wherein one or more lens elements can have their position shifted so as to place the display at different depth of field distances from the eye.

7. The eye mounted display of claim 6, wherein an induced depth of field distance of the display from the eye is determined by a function of the dynamically tracked vergence angle of the two eyes.

8. The eye mounted display of claim 7, wherein the function of the vergence angle of the two eyes is one that dynamically places the display at the same optical depth that the vergence angle of the two eyes indicates that normal vision (non-presbyopic) is expecting to have to change the eye'"'"'s internal lens to accommodate to.

9. An eye mounted display device comprised of multiple sub-displays, having different sub-displays displaying to different ranges of visual eccentricities magnifying the size of their pixels displayed such that the amount of magnification approximately follows the locally uniform resolution mapping.

10. An eye mounted display, comprised of multiple sub-displays, whose combined projected images on the retina completely cover the retina out to an outer edge, in which the shape of the pixel containing region of the individual sub-displays light emitting element is either a fixed shape that can tile the plane, or similar to the distorted version of that shape produced by mapping that shape by the portion of the locally uniform resolution mapping that applies to the region of the retina that a particular sub-display displays to, which is a shape known to be able to tile a portion of the surface of a sphere.

11. The eye mounted display of claim 10, wherein the fixed shape is rectangular.

12. The eye mounted display of claim 10, wherein the fixed shape is triangular.

13. The eye mounted display of claim 10, wherein the fixed shape is hexagonal.

14. The eye mounted display of claim 13, wherein a group of centermost sub-displays are hexagonal in shape, and those sub-displays outside this group are those that have a shape similar to the distorted version of a hexagonal shape produced by mapping a hexagonal shape by the portion of the locally uniform resolution mapping that applies to the region of the retina that a particular sub-display displays to.

15. The eye mounted display of claim 14, wherein the group of displays that are hexagonal in shape are the seven centermost ones.

16. The eye mounted display of claim 14, wherein the group of displays that are hexagonal in shape are the thirteen centermost ones.

17. The eye mounted display of claim 14, wherein the group of displays that are hexagonal in shape are the nineteen centermost ones.

18. The eye mounted display of claim 10, wherein the fixed shape sub-displays combined image on the retina covers at least the foveal region.

19. The eye mounted display of claim 10, wherein the eye mounted display is a contact lens display, and in which the fixed shape sub-displays combined image on the retina covers the central portion of the contact lens such that for any normally possible orientation of the contact lens on the cornea, and any normally possible offset of the contact lens from the center of the cornea up to some specified limit, the combined image of the fixed shape sub-displays on the retina will always cover at least the foveal region.

20. The eye mounted display of claim 10, wherein image on the retina produced by each sub-display overlaps by some amount the images on the retina produced by the immediate neighboring sub-displays to the sub-display.