A polarized head-mounted projective display

Abstract

The lack of image brightness is a common problem in optical see-through head-mounted displays (OST-HMD) where a beamsplitter is required to combine views from HMD image source and the direct-view of a real world scene. This problem is further aggregated in a head-mounted projective display (HMPD) due to the fact that light passes through the beamsplitter multiple times. We present a novel design of an ultra-bright polarized head-mounted projective display (p-HMPD). The image brightness observed by a viewer theoretically is four-times brighter than existing designs. We further demonstrate a design with currently available technology that leads to a display in which the observed image is significantly brighter than existing designs. Finally, experimental results from a bench setup are presented.