hlr@well.sf.ca.us (Howard Rheingold) (02/13/90)
I have a lazy eye -- my right eye does not track my left eye when I look at distant objects (the left is dominant, I tend to ignore the input from the right). They track OK when I look at things within a few feet. I had surgery to frob the muscles in one eye but it did not correct the problem and I'm not too thrilled with the prospect of going under the knife again. Before the surgery, I had some therapy for a while that involved excercizes to improve the muscles, but they didn't help, because they were deathly boring, and I didn't do them nearly as much as I should have. Can a head mount display compensate for the lazy eye, by shifting the image in one eye enough so that it does not have to turn as much to make the images line up? If the images are close enough together (i.e. if I'm looking at something close up in real life) my eyes track without me thinking about it. If I'm watching an object move away from me, at some point my right eye will stop tracking it and it will pop into monoscopic (I will start ignoring my right eye). I am wondering if I can get stereo vision at a (virtual) distance, using a head mount display, in spite of the lazy eye, and even have the software train the lazy eye by gently and gradually separating the images over time, once my eyes are tracking. I think the problem is that those muscles don't get excercized in the right way, and maybe a head mount display could be programmed to do that, maybe even with games that would help excercise the muscles. Any ideas? I am extemely interested in working with virtual reality, and I would love to use a head mount display, except that my 3-D perception is terrible. It would be wonderful if a HMD could help me with my eye problem, rather than my eye problem being a hinderance with a HMD. -Don
hitl@hardy.u.washington.edu (moderator of sci.virtual worlds) (02/13/90)
<NOTE FROM MODERATOR: Still a novice, I neglected to post the correct id in the From: line when I posted the request from the fellow with "lazy eye," a malady that appears to be connected with virtual worlds technology because it involves the physiology of stereoscopic vision. And now I received this helpful note. So I will post the note here, and Don, who asked the question, can communicate directly with apple!WYVERN.CIMDS.RI.CMU.EDU!Susan.Finger> I have a lazy eye too, and a while ago I saw a reference to a woman who does research on children with amblyopia. She uses video games that require children to learn to use both eyes to play. I wrote her a letter and asked if I would be able to learn to use both eyes by playing the games. She sent back a very friendly letter (I was a program director at the National Science Foundation at the time which may have increased the level of helpfulness). She said that I was probably too old to learn to use both eyes. She sent a paper called Video Games and Amblyopia Treatment. (It doesn't say where it was published.) I could send you a copy of the article (if you send me you US mail address) or you could write to her directly at: Sara Shippman New York Ear and Eye Infirmary 310 East 14th Street New York, NY 10003 Hope that's helpful, Susan
hlr@well.sf.ca.us (Howard Rheingold) (02/13/90)
In article <16115@well.sf.ca.us> you write: > >I have a lazy eye -- my right eye does not track my left eye when I [lines deleted] >I am extemely interested in working with virtual reality, and I would love >to use a head mount display, except that my 3-D perception is terrible. >It would be wonderful if a HMD could help me with my eye problem, >rather than my eye problem being a hinderance with a HMD. Well I rather doubt its a "standard" feature, but one could be built. I have seen small gadgets for tracking eye postion, and in fact some very high end HMDs use such a device in order to keep the high res portion of their display centered on what the person is looking at (it was found that you don't need to put the periferal porstion of the display into hi res which saves a lot of cpu time). Note that this might not work. (giant caveot: I know very little about this subject, I have been interested in HMDs for about 12 years, and have very bad and uncorrectable vision myself, and my right eye is twice as bad as my left so it doesn't track, period. close up or far away, so i do knwo a little). Anyway the point i was gettng to is that by providing the one eye with an image which is out of place (i.e. the image the eye gets is actually what would be seen 10 degrees to the left say), this might be very confusing to the diretionality center in the brain. There is a huge amount of neral processing connected with eye movement and stabalization, inner ear function, and so on. So its not clear that doing as you propose would work. but it would be fun to check it out in any case. -- apple!jrg John R. Galloway, Jr. contract programmer, San Jose, Ca These are my views, NOT Apple's, I am a GUEST here, not an employee!!