Apparatuses, methods and systems for pre-warping images for a display system with a distorting optical component

1. A virtual reality or augmented reality head mounted display (HMD) system; the system comprising:

an image source configured to display an image for viewing by a user of the HMD system;

an optical element having an optical geometry, wherein the optical element is positioned relative to the image source to reflect light projected from the image source of the HMD system to an eye of a user of the HMD system; and

one or more processing devices configured to execute instructions that cause the one or more processing devices to:

receive data corresponding to an image for display by the HMD system;

map the image data to pixels of the image source to create an image having a distortion; and

render the mapped image data to the image source to project the image having the distortion, wherein the user of the HMD system perceives a virtual image corresponding to the distorted image that is substantially free of optical distortion.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the optical geometry of the optical element distorts light reflected from the image source to the eye of the user of the HMD to substantially eliminate or correct the distortion of the projected image from the image source.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the optical geometry of the optical element distorts light reflected from the image source to the eye of the user of the HMD.

4. The system of claim 1 further comprising a storage device configured to store a map derived from the optical geometry of the optical element, wherein the one or more processing devices are further configured to execute instructions that cause the one or more processing devices to:

access the map; and

apply the map to the image data to render the image data according to coordinates indicated by the map.

5. The system of claim 4 , wherein to apply the map the one or more processing devices are further configured to execute instructions that cause the one or more processing devices to:

sample the map at coordinates for each pixel of the image;

determine a pair of image plane coordinates of the image source corresponding to the sampled map; and

sample the image at the determined image plane coordinates to generate a portion of the distorted image for display by the image source.

6. The system of claim 4 , wherein the map is derived from a virtual mesh including a plurality of vertices representing the shape or contour of a surface of the optical element.

7. A computer implemented method of rendering an image of a virtual reality or augmented reality head mounted display (HMD) system that includes an image source configured to display an image for viewing by a user of the HMD system and an optical element having an optical geometry, wherein the optical element is positioned relative to the image source to reflect light projected from the image source of the HMD system to an eye of a user of the HMD system, the method comprising:

receiving, by a processing device, data corresponding to the image for display by the HMD system;

mapping, by the processing device, the image data to pixels of the image source to create an image having a distortion;

rendering the mapped image data to the image source to project the image having the distortion, wherein the user of the HMD system perceives a virtual image corresponding to the distorted image that is substantially free of optical distortion.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein a curvature of the optical geometry of the optical element distorts light reflected to the eye of the user of the HMD to substantially eliminate or correct the distortion of the projected image from the image source.

9. The method of claim 7 , wherein the optical geometry of the optical element distorts light reflected to the eye of the user of the HMD.

10. The method of claim 7 further comprising:

storing a map derived from the optical geometry of the optical element; and

accessing the map; wherein

mapping the image data includes applying the map to the image data to render the image data according to coordinates indicated by the map.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein to apply the map includes:

sampling the map at coordinates for each pixel of the image;

determining a pair of image plane coordinates of the image source corresponding to the sampled map; and

sampling the image at the determined image plane coordinates to generate a portion of the distorted image for display by the image source.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the map is derived from a virtual mesh including a plurality of vertices representing a shape or contour of a surface of the optical element.

13. A computer implemented method of configuring a virtual reality or augmented reality head mounted display (HMD) including an optical element reflecting light of an image presented by the HMD system to an eye of a viewer of the HMD system; the method comprising:

determining, by a processing device, a model of a geometry of a surface of the optical element of the HMD system reflecting the image;

determining, by the processing device, a location of the eye of the viewer of the HMD system relative to the optical element;

determining the location of a source of the image relative to the optical element;

mapping, by the processing device, an optical distortion of the image derived from the model, the eye location, and image source location;

mapping, by the processing device, an inverse of the mapped optical distortion; and

configuring the HMD system to apply the inverse mapping when rendering image data for display by the image source to present a distorted image by the image source.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the mapping of the optical distortion indicates a screen pixel or pixels of the image source corresponding to a ray of light entering the eye of the user.

15. The method of claim 13 , wherein mapping the inverse optical distortion is a function of image plane coordinates of the image source relative to the eyes of a user of the HMD to pixel coordinates of the image presented by the image source.

16. The method of claim 13 , wherein determining a model of the geometry of the surface of the optical element includes determining a virtual mesh including a plurality of vertices representing the shape or contour of the surface of the optical element.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the virtual mesh is created using a pinhole visual model, and the virtual mesh is rendered in image plane coordinates.

18. The method of claim 16 further comprising creating, by the processing device, a position map and a normal map from the virtual mesh.

19. The method of claim 16 further comprising, for each vertex in the virtual mesh, determining a position and a corresponding normal vector.