Systems for augmented reality visual aids and tools

Inventors

Watola, David • Cormier, Jay E. • Kim, Brian

Assignees

Eyedaptic Inc

Abstract

Adaptive Control Driven System/ACDS 99, supports visual enhancement, mitigation of challenges and with basic image modification algorithms and any known hardware from contact lenses to IOLs to AR hardware glasses, and enables users to enhance vision with user interface based on a series of adjustments that are applied to move, modify, or reshape image sets and components with full advantage of the remaining useful retinal area, thus addressing aspects of visual challenges heretofore inaccessible by devices which learn needed adjustments.

Core Innovation

The patent describes augmented-reality visual aids and tools for assisting a user who has a visual field defect. The system captures real-time video images with a camera of a visual aid device and continuously processes the real-time video images to produce warped real-time video images, which are continuously displayed on a display of the visual aid device to assist the user in maintaining fixation at a target point.

To support fixation, the patent overlays a fiducial pattern over the warped real-time video images on the display. The fiducial pattern includes at least two intersecting lines that pass through the visual field defect, and fiducials can be independent from the warped real-time video images and appear undistorted relative to the warped imagery, including symmetric or asymmetric fiducials and animated fiducial effects such as crawling dots.

The patent also documents interactive visual-field modeling and defect characterization using a user-controlled field of view model and an interactive mapping and warping workflow. It uses an internal visual-field template and applies tiered radial warps and grid-based warps, including polar warping, polar grid warps, and cartesian grid warps, represented using a B-spline representation, with guided training modes such as fixation/eccentric viewing and preferred retinal locus (PRL) driven mapping.

Claims Coverage

The document provides one independent claim. This independent claim includes four core inventive features: camera-based capture of real-time video, continuous processing to generate warped real-time video, continuous display of the warped real-time video, and an overlay fiducial pattern that includes at least two intersecting lines passing through the visual field defect.

Across the independent claim, the coverage centers on maintaining fixation under a visual field defect using continuously warped real-time video generated from camera capture and displayed with a fiducial overlay defined by at least two intersecting lines passing through the defect. Dependent refinements described in the provided claim list further constrain fiducial geometry, fiducial independence and undistorted appearance relative to warped imagery, and user-input-driven adjustment.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications