Smartphone based Virtual Reality Display just got better

There is a slew of wearable VR displays that need nothing more than a case to hold your smartphone and a strap to wear it over your eyes.

But most of these devices struggle to provide stereoscopic vision while also maintaining comfort. In particular, providing a truly 3D view requires presenting distinct images to the left and right eyes. Since the field of views of the right and left eyes overlap, some part of the smartphone screen is visible to both eyes.

While some designers have chosen to ignore this as a minor artifact, others have decided to treat this as a dead zone that is not used for displaying. In either case, the user is robbed of a completely immersive 3D experience.

Inventors at Lockheed Martin have however looked the other way by designing a wearable device that ensures that each eye gets distinct images without sacrificing on any screen area. They have achieved this with the use of a pair of Fresnel lenses that sit in front of each eye on a spectacles like frame. These Fresnel lenses create distinct optical paths originating from two separate regions on the display screen of the smartphone onto the respective eye. As a result, there is no overlap between the images seen by either eyes providing a truly stereoscopic vision.

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