AUGMENTED REALITY DISPLAY COMPRISING EYEPIECE HAVING A TRANSPARENT EMISSIVE DISPLAY
An augmented reality head mounted display system an eyepiece having a transparent emissive display. The eyepiece and transparent emissive display are positioned in an optical path of a user's eye in order to transmit light into the user's eye to form images. Due to the transparent nature of the display, the user can see an outside environment through the transparent emissive display. The transmissive emissive display comprising a plurality of emitters configured to emit light into the eye of the user.
1 . (canceled)
2 . A head-mounted display system configured to project light to an eye of a user to display augmented reality image content in a vision field of the user, the head-mounted display system comprising:
a frame configured to be supported on a head of the user;
an eyepiece disposed on the frame at a location in front of the eye of the user when the head mounted display is mounted on to the head of the user, the eyepiece including:
a transparent emissive display comprising a plurality of emitters, the transparent emissive display configured to emit light into the eye of the user to display augmented reality image content in a vision field of the user, the transparent emissive display being transparent and emissive over an area, the transparent emissive display disposed at a location in front of the eye of the user when the head-mounted display is mounted on to the head of the user such that the transparent emissive display transmits light from an environment in front of the user through the transparent emissive area to the eye of the user to provide a view of the environment in front of the user;
a proximal variable focus optical element and a distal variable focus optical element, each of the proximal variable focus optical element and the distal variable focus optical element comprising a plurality of electrical inputs configured to control an optical power of the optical element by varying divergence of light projected from the transparent emissive display to the user;
a first occluder comprising a first spatial light modulator configured to receive an electrical input to cause one or more pixels of the first spatial light modulator to transmit light while other one or more pixels of the first spatial light modulator are opaque;
a second occluder comprising a second spatial light modulator configured to receive an electrical input to cause one or more pixels of the second spatial light modulator to transmit light while other one or more pixels of the second spatial light modulator are opaque; and
electronics coupled to the transparent emissive display and to the first and second occluder, wherein the electronics are configured to coordinate operation of the transparent emissive display and the first and second occluder to control an opacity of the one or more pixels of the first and second spatial light modulator, at a frequency greater than that which can be detected by human eyes, while simultaneously controlling a light emission of at least one of the emitters that is aligned with the one or more pixels.
3 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the one or more pixels of the first spatial light modulator that transmit light and the one or more pixels of the second spatial light modulator that transmit light are aligned along a linear optical path which receives light from the one or more emitters on the transparent emissive display.
4 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the second occluder is spaced apart from the first occluder, and the transparent emissive display is located between the distal variable focus optical element and the second occluder.
5 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the first spatial modulator is a liquid crystal spatial modulator.
6 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the transparent emissive display is a transparent film spatial modulator.
7 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the transparent emissive display is an organic light emitting diode (OLED) film.
8 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the transparent emissive display is a quantum-dot light-emitting diode (QLED) display.
9 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the proximal variable focus optical element is configured to alter divergence of light emitted from the transparent emissive display to cause different image content to appear as if emitted from different distances in front of the eyepiece.
10 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the proximal variable focus optical element is a switchable liquid crystal lens assembly.
11 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the proximal variable focus optical element is configured to vary between two states that introduce different negative optical powers to vary divergence of light from the transparent emissive display.
12 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the eyepiece further comprises at least one lens array comprising a plurality of lenses, wherein a lens of the plurality of lenses is associated with two or more emitters of a plurality of emitters.
13 . The system of claim 2 , wherein a first portion of light emissions from the plurality of emitters of the transparent emissive display is blocked by one or more opaque pixels of the first spatial light modulator and the second spatial light modulator, and a second portion of light emissions from the plurality of emitters of the transparent emissive display passes through the first spatial light modulator and the second spatial light modulator to the proximal variable focus optical element at a specific angle.
14 . The system of claim 13 , wherein the specific angle of the second portion of light emissions that passes through the first spatial light modulator and the second spatial light modulator corresponds to light from particular portions of an object in the environment.
15 . The system of claim 13 , wherein the specific angle of the second portion of light emissions that passes through the first spatial light modulator and the second spatial light modulator corresponds to locations a conjugate image on a retina of the eye of the user.
16 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the eyepiece further comprises a distal occluder on a distal side of the transparent emissive display between the transparent emissive display and the environment in front of the user.
17 . The system of claim 16 , wherein the eyepiece further comprises a distal lens and a proximal lens on opposite sides of the distal occluder.
18 . The system of claim 17 , wherein the proximal lens is configured to reduce divergence of light emitted by the transparent emissive display.
19 . The system of claim 17 , wherein the proximal lens comprises a lens with positive optical power.
20 . The system of claim 17 , wherein the proximal lens is configured to collimate light emitted by the transparent emissive display.
21 . The system of claim 17 , wherein the distal lens is a lens with optical power of an opposite sign and similar magnitude as an optical power of proximal lens.