Bernard Kress

This paper is a review and analysis of the various implementation architectures of diffractive waveguide combiners for augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) headsets, and smart glasses. Extended reality (XR) is another acronym frequently used to refer to all variants across the MR spectrum. Such devices have the potential to revolutionize how we work, communicate, travel, learn, teach, shop, and are entertained. Already, market analysts show very optimistic expectations on return on… Show more

This paper is a review and analysis of the various implementation architectures of diffractive waveguide combiners for augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) headsets, and smart glasses. Extended reality (XR) is another acronym frequently used to refer to all variants across the MR spectrum. Such devices have the potential to revolutionize how we work, communicate, travel, learn, teach, shop, and are entertained. Already, market analysts show very optimistic expectations on return on investment in MR, for both enterprise and consumer applications. Hardware architectures and technologies for AR and MR have made tremendous progress over the past five years, fueled by recent investment hype in start-ups and accelerated mergers and acquisitions by larger corporations. In order to meet such high market expectations, several challenges must be addressed: first, cementing primary use cases for each specific market segment and, second, achieving greater MR performance out of increasingly size-, weight-, cost- and power-constrained hardware. One such crucial component is the optical combiner. Combiners are often considered as critical optical elements in MR headsets, as they are the direct window to both the digital content and the real world for the user’s eyes. Show less

This book is a timely review of the various optical architectures, display technologies, and building blocks for modern consumer, enterprise, and defense head-mounted displays for various applications, including smart glasses, smart eyewear, and virtual-reality, augmented-reality, and mixed-reality headsets. Special attention is paid to the facets of the human perception system and the need for a human-centric optical design process that allows for the most comfortable headset that does not… Show more

This book is a timely review of the various optical architectures, display technologies, and building blocks for modern consumer, enterprise, and defense head-mounted displays for various applications, including smart glasses, smart eyewear, and virtual-reality, augmented-reality, and mixed-reality headsets. Special attention is paid to the facets of the human perception system and the need for a human-centric optical design process that allows for the most comfortable headset that does not compromise the user’s experience. Major challenges--from wearability and visual comfort to sensory and display immersion--must be overcome to meet market analyst expectations, and the book reviews the most appropriate optical technologies to address such challenges, as well as the latest product implementations. Show less

Chapter on Optical Technologies

Chapter on Diffractive Optics

Vol 9202 - 16 October 2014
55 papers (544) pages - ISBN: 9781628412291