Artifact reduction in lenslet array near-eye displays

Abstract

Lenslet array near-eye displays are a revolutionary technology that generates a virtual image in the field of view of the observer. Although this technology is advantageous in creating compact near-eye displays, undesirable artifacts occur when the user pupil moves outside of the pupil practical movable region (PPMR). Even with dynamic image updating based on eye-tracking techniques, artifacts can still be perceived when human eyes turn rapidly. To enlarge PPMR, we proposed a new rendering method in previous work. To improve the rendering speed in the eye tracking system, look-up tables are used. The disadvantage of the onboard system is the large memory consumption. In this study, we analyzed the system parameters of the incident pupil and pupil margin light columns, the feasibility of the optimized system, and evaluated the optimized system that can adapt to the maximum velocity of the saccadic pupil movement. We optimized the rendering method to reduce memory consumption in the process of generating microdisplay images. In addition, we provide GPU rendering method to improve system speed and reduce system latency to meet the maximum human eye rotation speed. We conducted user studies to evaluate the effect of the method using the optimized rendering method combined with eye tracking to reduce artifacts for fast eye rotation on different images and videos. Results showed that our method effectively reduced artifacts via the optimized rendering method with eye tracking, which adapted to faster human eye movements.