peterl@ibmpcug.co.uk (Peter Leaback) (03/05/90)
For my Computer Science degree project I am contemplating building a head mounted display. I am tring to guage whether this is a realistic task for a year long project. The two major problems I can immediately see are :- 1) Obtaining a sufficiently high resolution,high contrast and small LCD. I guess a 512*512 display is about the lowest resolution that is passable for a HMD ? Are LCD's up to this resolution ? 2) Bending the light from the display so as to be near parallel.I know little of optic theory but using a normal lens system (such as in a video camera view finder) the picture is distanced some what, and gives the effect of tunnel vision.I assume to avoid this,one has to have a concave projection surface close to the eye. The host computer is less of a problem, i have an Archimedes which can drive screens up to a pixel rate of 96 Mhz. I could split the RGB output into two monochrome displays and use a 4 color mode to plot to the individual screens. As for the positional and orientational information it may be possible to use a similar ultra-sonic arrangement to that of the "Power Glove". It is out of the question to buy a 3SPACE Isotrak which costs $3000 the last time i checked! Advice would be greatly appreciated. Peter Leaback. -- Automatic Disclaimer: The views expressed above are those of the author alone and may not represent the views of the IBM PC User Group. --