Digital Lens makes Varjo's human-eye resolution visible to humans
The pure software solution for dynamic optical aberrations correction boosts image clarity beyond the limit of near-eye display optical hardware.
Varjo VR displays feature so-called "human-eye resolution", meaning the pixel count and density match or overcome the resolution capability of the human eye. It appears, however, that it's not enough to project a high-resolution picture. It's important to transfer it uncorrupted to the human eye through the optics. And here is where Varjo, as any other display maker, hits the fundamental physical limits.
It's nearly impossible to design an optical system clear enough to transfer a human-eye resolution image within the size and weight constraints of a head-worn device. Moreover, the optics performance falls way behind its design specs when the eye moves off the optical axis or out of the tiny "sweet spot".
Almalence Digital Lens is a solution that does a job of a corrective optical system, compensating for those deficiencies in optical performance. The higher the display resolution - the bigger the gap between what is projected by the display and what gets to the user's eye through the lens - and thus more apparent the effect of the Digital Lens is.
We've recently had a chance to test the Digital Lens with Varjo Aero; some comparison examples and a video are below:
Having characterized the Aero optical system and how it performs depending on the eye pupil position and gaze, the Digital Lens could noticeably improve the visible resolution and reduce the color fringing.
No hardware modification has been done to the device. The technology is purely computational and can be embedded into the rendering pipeline. Almalence has demos running on some other latest-and-greatest HMDs such as HP Reverb G2 and Pico 3 Neo Eye (the last one includes pupil swim correction as well) - get in touch with us to check those out.