International Business Machines Corporation

Carl G Powell

Russell Alan Budd

Derek Brian Dove

Robert Stephen Olyha, Jr

Istvan Lovas

Gerald Goertzel

Samuel C-c Tseng

Ronald I Feigenblatt

Paul F Heidrich

Russel A Budd

Robert S Olyha

A head mounted virtual image display unit is provided which is compact in size and weight, and incorporates a high performance optical system offering a clear see-through capability. A sliding light shield may be incorporated for those instances when see-through capability is not desired. A focus adjustment may be incorporated to permit the focusing of the image, for example, at a distance of approximately 18 inches to infinity. An adjustable headband may be incorporated that adapts to fit the users head. A flexible boom structure may be incorporated to facilitate fine positional adjustment of the optical assembly. A slider and ball joint mechanism may also be incorporated to facilitate positional adjustment of the optical assembly. A built-in microphone may be incorporated to enable speech input by the user. The head mounted virtual image display unit may be used comfortably in conjunction with eye or safety glasses, and provides a useful image to the user without blocking his view of the surrounding environment. The unit is designed to have a pleasing appearance so as to greatly enhance user acceptability.

Compact optical system and packaging for head mounted display

A method of displaying an image which builds upon the error propagation method for mosaic color displays propagates error between elements diagonally for a mosaic color display having diagonal rows consisting of monochromatic elements. In the method, called 'pel interleaving', the 'error' propagated into the first element in the diagonal row changes with each new image or frame processed. More specifically the error propagated into each diagonal's first element increases incrementally with each frame processed until it exceeds the maximum element intensity value, in which case it is started anew by subtracting the maximum value. The incremental increasing of this initial error, in the binary display case, leads to the spatial drift of 'on' elements along the diagonals. If all preload values are equally likely, the time integrated ensemble of the displays approaches the exact contone image as the number of displayed images increases. Thus, if the processing is fast, so that the eye integrates a number of displayed images for the same input image, the display perceived using the present image approaches the actual contone of the input image.

Error propagated image halftoning with time-varying phase shift

A character compaction and generation method and apparatus which is particularly adapted to the generation of complex characters such as Kanji characters. A dot matrix defining a given character is compacted into a sparse matrix, with the original character being reconstructed for printing or display from the compacted character defined in the sparse matrix. Each character in the complex character set is compacted and stored in memory one time only, with decompaction being performed each time a given character is to be generated. A set of symbols are defined to represent different patterns which occur frequently in the entire complex character set. Different combinations of the symbols define a given character. The information stored for each sparse matrix representing a given character is comprised of each symbol in the sparse matrix, its position, and its size parameter if the symbol represents a family of patterns which differ only in size. Three groups of different patterns are defined which occur frequently in the complex character set, namely, a first group which has a fixed size for each pattern, a second group which has one size parameter which must be specified for each pattern, and a third group which has a plurality of size parameters which must be specified for each pattern.

Complex character generator

A coupler for coupling optical energy transmitted by optical fibers to a thin-film optical waveguide and a method of manufacture. In the method an optical fiber is sandwiched between a pair of substrates and the substrates and fiber are bonded together with a suitable material. The bonded product is then cut to provide a surface including a cross section of the fiber. After polishing this surface a thin-film optical waveguide is then provided on the surface including the fiber end. The cutting angle is chosen such that, in the assembled coupler, the exit angle with respect to the waveguide surface is greater than the critical angle of the guide material. In this fashion the optical energy coupled from fiber to guide is trapped in the guide. The apparatus includes an optical fiber in a substrate with a cross section of the fiber in the surface of the substrate with a thin-film optical waveguide overlying the substrate surface. To insure the coupled optical energy is trapped in the guide the angle between the fiber axis in the substrate and the guide surface is greater than the critical angle for the guide material.

Coupler for coupling optical energy transmitted by optical fiber to

Growing community of inventors

Putnam Valley, NY, United States of America

Carl G Powell