Near-eye display performance is usually summarized with a few simple metrics such as field of view, resolution, brightness, size, and weight, which are derived from the display industry. In practice, near-eye displays often suffer from image artifacts not captured in traditional display metrics. This work defines several immersive near-eye display metrics such as gaze resolution, pupil swim, image contrast, and stray light. We will discuss these metrics and their trade-offs through review of a few families of viewing optics. Fresnel lenses are used in most commercial virtual reality near-eye displays in part due to their light weight, low volume and acceptable pupil swim performance. However, Fresnel lenses can suffer from significant stray light artifacts. We will share our measurements of several lenses and demonstrate ways to improve performance. Smooth refractive lens systems offer the option for lower stray-light viewing but usually at the cost of a much larger size and weight in order to get to the same pupil swim performance. This can be addressed by using a curved image plane but requires new display technology. Polarization-based pancake optics is promising and can provide excellent image resolution and pupil swim performance within an attractive form-factor. This approach, however, generally results in low light efficiency and poor image contrast due to severe ghosting. We will discuss some of the main limitations of that technology.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.