Light Attenuation Display (2019)
Light Attenuation Display: Subtractive See-Through Near-Eye Display via Spatial Color Filtering
Yuta Itoh, Tobias Langlotz, Daisuke Iwai, Kiyoshi Kiyokawa, and Toshiyuki Amano
Abstract
We present a display for optical see-through near-eye displays based on light attenuation, a new paradigm that forms images by spatially subtracting colors of light. Existing optical see-through head-mounted displays (OST-HMDs) form virtual images in an additive mannertextemdash they optically combine the light from an embedded light source such as a microdisplay into the users' field of view (FoV). Instead, our light attenuation display filters the color of the real background light pixel-wise in the users' see-through view, resulting in an image as a spatial color filter. Our image formation is complementary to existing light-additive OST-HMDs. The core optical component in our system is a phase-only spatial light modulator (PSLM), a liquid crystal module that can control the phase of the light in each pixel. By combining PSLMs with polarization optics, our system realizes a spatially programmable color filter. In this paper, we introduce our optics design, evaluate the spatial color filter, consider applications including image rendering and FoV color control, and discuss the limitations of the current prototype.
Publications
[bibtex]
@article{itoh2019attenuation,
author = {Itoh, Yuta and Langlotz, Tobias and Iwai, Daisuke and Kiyokawa, Kiyoshi and Amano, Toshiyuki},
journal = {IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG)},
title = {Light Attenuation Display: Subtractive See-Through Near-Eye Display via Spatial Color Filtering},
year = {2019},
issn = {1077-2626},
month = may,
number = {5},
pages = {1951--1960},
volume = {25},
date = {May},
keywords = {colour displays;helmet mounted displays;light attenuation;light polarisation;light sources;liquid crystal displays;microdisplays;optical filters;spatial filters;spatial light modulators;spatially subtracting colors;embedded light source;background light pixel-wise;core optical component;phase-only spatial light modulator;polarization optics;spatially programmable color filter;image rendering;FoV color control;optical see-through head-mounted displays;virtual imaging;subtractive see-through near-eye display;light-additive OST-HMD;optical see-through near-eye displays;microdisplay;light attenuation display filters;PSLM;liquid crystal module;Image color analysis;Lighting;Attenuation;Liquid crystal displays;Optical imaging;Optical attenuators;Optical polarization;Light attenuation display;phase modulation;see-through display;vision augmentation;augmented reality},
}