Apple Inc.

Meta Platforms Technologies, LLC

Future Wei Technologies, Inc.

Bennett S Wilburn

Cheng Kai Chen

Paolo Sacchetto

Fletcher R Rothkopf

Shih Chang Chang

Jason C Sauers

Graham Butler Myhre

Enkhamgalan Dorjgotov

Wonjae Choi

David W Lum

Cheuk Chi Lo

Chun-Yao Huang

Edward Buckley

Jonathan C Moisant-Thompson

Shuang Wang

Chaohao Wang

Wei Jiang

Zhibing Ge

Moinul H Khan

Sheng Zhang

Yuan Chen

Nicolas P Bonnier

James H Zhou

Ove Lyngnes

Michael Slootsky

Alexandre Chapiro

Nan Zhu

Fu-Chung Huang

Eric J Hansotte

Kavitha Ratnam

Jinwei Gu

Pravin Rao

Simon Fortin-Deschenes

Sterling G Orsten

Yanli Zhang

Seth E Hunter

An electronic device such as a head-mounted device may have displays. The display may have regions of lower and higher resolution to reduce data bandwidth and power consumption for the display while preserving satisfactory image quality. Data lines may be shared by lower and higher resolution portions of a display or different portions of a display with different resolutions may be supplied with different numbers of data lines. Data line length may be varied in transition regions between lower resolution and higher resolution portions of a display to reduce visible discontinuities between the lower and higher resolution portions. The lower and higher resolution portions of the display may be dynamically adjusted using dynamically adjustable gate driver circuitry and dynamically adjustable data line driver circuitry.

Foveated display

An electronic device may provide visual content at a virtual image distance that is farther from a user than the physical distance of the device from the user. A display in the device may have a transmissive spatial light modulator and beam steering device that are illuminated by a plane wave illumination system to provide computer-generated hologram images, may have a waveguide-based system that ensures that image content is presented at a desired virtual image distance, or may be a light-field display. The display may be used to display a left image in a left eye box and a right image in a right eye box. When viewed from the eye boxes, the left and right images fuse and are visible at a virtual image distance that is farther from the user than the distance physically separating the eye boxes from the display.

Electronic devices with vision correcting displays

Eyewear such as sunglasses may include display-optimized lenses. The lenses may be optimized for viewing an external display and/or for viewing a display in the head-mounted device while also providing sun protection for the user's eyes. The lenses may include a polarizer and a color filter that are designed for a given target display. Lenses that are optimized for a display that emits linearly polarized light may include a linear polarizer. Lenses that are optimized for a display that emits circularly polarized light may include a circular polarizer. The circular polarizer may include a quarter wave plate and a linear polarizer. The color filter may have a transmission spectrum curve with peaks corresponding to the primary colors of the target display so that the color and brightness of display light is preserved while the brightness of sunlight is reduced.

Eyewear with display-optimized lenses

In one embodiment, a computing system may determine, determine an estimated distance of an eye of a user to a display plane of a display. The system may access correction maps corresponding to a number of reference distances to the display plane of the display. The system may select a first reference distance and a second reference distance based on the estimated distance. The system may generate a custom correction map for the user based on an interpolation of a first correction map corresponding to the first reference distance and a second correction map corresponding to the second reference distance. The system may adjust an image to be displayed on the display using the custom correction map. The custom correction map may correct non-uniformity of the display as viewed from the eye of the user. The system may display the image adjusted using the custom correction map on the display.

Display non-uniformity correction

In one embodiment, the system may determine an estimated distance of an eye of a user to a display plane of a display. The system may access, from a memory storage, a number of transmission maps characterizing non-uniform transmission characters of the display as measured from a number of pre-determined view positions within a measurement plane. The measurement plane may be separated from the display plane by a known distance. The system may generate a custom transmission map for the estimated distance of the eye based on the transmission maps using light field rendering. The system may determine a custom correction map based on the custom transmission map. The system may adjust an image to be displayed on the display using the custom correction map. The system may display the image adjusted using the custom correction map on the display.

Some implementations provide improved user experiences on head mounted devices (HMDs) that provide near eye viewing, e.g., HMDs that display distorted images and provide lenses that undistort the images for the user. The images are produced using distortion that is corrected dynamically based on context to conserve device resources. To do so, a context associated with a state of the user, the HMD, or content being viewed on the HMD is tracked during the user experience. For example, the device may predict pupil position, eye state, eye gaze direction, or eye fixation, content type, connection mode, and other context. The device uses the tracked context to determine how to correct distortion for the images at different points during the user experience. For example, new distortion corrections may be computed and used while the user's gaze is moving and previously-determined distortion corrections may be used while the user's gaze is fixed.

Context aware dynamic distortion correction

Optical systems may have tunable lenses with focal lengths that are adjusted by control circuitry. A display may produce image light that is received by a tunable lens. The display may be transparent so that light from objects can pass through the display and be received by the tunable lens. The tunable lens may include a birefringent lens element and a polarization rotator and may receive light that has been linearly polarized by passing through a linear polarizer. The polarization rotator may be operable in a first state in which the polarization of light passing through the polarization rotator is not rotated and a second state in which the polarization of light passing through the polarization rotator is rotated by 90&#xb0;. The birefringent lens element may be formed from a cured liquid crystal polymer or other polymer and may have a liquid crystal additive to enhance birefringence.

Optical systems with adjustable lenses

An electronic device such as a head-mounted device may have displays. The display may have regions of lower (L) and higher (M, H) resolution to reduce data bandwidth and power consumption for the display while preserving satisfactory image quality. Data lines may be shared by lower and higher resolution portions of a display or different portions of a display with different resolutions may be supplied with different numbers of data lines. Data line length may be varied in transition regions between lower resolution and higher resolution portions of a display to reduce visible discontinuities between the lower and higher resolution portions. The lower and higher resolution portions of the display may be dynamically adjusted using dynamically adjustable gate driver circuitry and dynamically adjustable data line driver circuitry.

An electronic device may have a display such as an organic light-emitting diode display. Electronic devices may also include a number of sensors such as accelerometers and gaze detection sensors. A graphics processing unit (GPU) may render digital pixel values for pixels in the device display. Frames (F) with long rendering times may cause latency. To reduce latency, an image frame may be displayed for an extended period of time () to wait for the subsequent frame (F) to finish rendering. Once the subsequent image frame (F) has finished rendering, the subsequent image frame may be displayed without delay. To increase the lifespan of the display, variable persistence may be used. Sensor data and other factors may be used to dynamically determine persistence for minimal motion blur and maximum display lifespan. Sensor data may also be used to determine refresh rates for different portions of the display.

Electronic devices with displays

Methods and apparatus are described that enable augmented or virtual reality based on a light field. A geometric proxy of a mobile device such as a smart phone is used during the process of inserting a virtual object from the light field into the real world images being acquired. For example, a mobile device includes a processor and a camera coupled to the processor. The processor is configured to define a view-dependent geometric proxy, record images with the camera to produce recorded frames and, based on the view-dependent geometric proxy, render the recorded frames with an inserted light field virtual object.

Methods and systems for light field augmented reality/virtual reality on mobile devices

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Bennett S Wilburn