28-3:Invited Paper: Light Field, Focus-tunable, and Monovision Near-eye Displays

Abstract

Emerging virtual and augmented reality (VR/VR) displays must overcome the prevalent issue of visual discomfort to provide comfortable user experiences. In particular, the mismatch between vergence and accommodation cues inherent to most stereoscopic displays has been a long-standing challenge. We evaluate several display modes that have the promise to mitigate visual discomfort caused by the vergence-accommodation conflict (VAC), and improve user comfort as well as performance in VR/AR applications. In particular, we explore light field, focus-tunable, and monovision display modes. Whereas light field displays seek to synthesize the 4D light field over the eye box of the viewer, for example with a stacked liquid crystal display architecture, focus-tunable display mode use either programmable liquid lenses or actuated displays to adaptively place the accommodation plane at different distances during the VR/AR experience. Monovision is an unconventional mode that accommodates each eye of the observer at different depths, a technique commonly used in ophthalmology. We evaluate the effectiveness of several different display modes enabled by light field and focus-tunable near eye displays.