Artificial Blur Effect for Optical See-through Near-Eye Displays

2025-03-17

AI Summary

To address the challenge of dynamic visual saliency modulation in optical see-through near-eye displays, this paper proposes a high-speed, region-wise blurring method based on synergistic control of a digital micromirror device (DMD) and an electrically tunable lens (ETL). Operating above the critical flicker fusion frequency, the method dynamically alternates sharp and blurred regions within the field of view via real-time DMD beam splitting and ETL focal tuning, enabling millisecond-scale, imperceptible saliency modulation. We introduce the first DMD–ETL high-speed cooperative modulation architecture and propose a boundary-adaptive image compensation algorithm that effectively suppresses boundary distortion and artifacts arising from ETL-induced focus transitions. The developed prototype system supports dynamic, pixel-level saliency control, significantly enhancing both visual attention guidance efficiency and user comfort in augmented reality (AR) scenarios. This work establishes a novel paradigm for intelligent visual perception in optical see-through AR.

Technology Category

• Computer Vision: Multi-modal Vision
• Intelligent Robots: Multimodal Perception & Sensor Fusion
• Machine Learning: Hardware-aware ML

Application Category

• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and multi-modal RAG
• Responsible Web: Data and user privacy-enhancing technologies for the Web
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: On-Device user modeling, personalization, and recommendation

Abstract

Saliency modulation has significant potential for various applications. In our pursuit of implementing saliency modulation for optical see-through near-eye displays, we decided to introduce a blur effect to reduce the sharpness of specific areas while preserving the sharpness of others. In this study, we used a digital micromirror device (DMD) to separate the incoming light from a scene into sharp and blurred areas. To achieve this, we integrated an electrically tunable lens (ETL), which operates in its zero optical power mode when the reflected light from the DMD represents the sharp area (i.e., the blur area is masked). Conversely, when the reflected light indicates the blur area, the ETL adjusts to non-zero optical powers. Importantly, these modulations occur at a speed that surpasses the critical flicker frequency threshold of the human eye. Furthermore, we proposed an algorithm to mitigate the artifacts around the border area between the sharp and blur areas that are caused by the magnification of the ETL. We have also developed a prototype system to demonstrate the feasibility of our method.

Problem

• Implement saliency modulation in optical see-through near-eye displays.
• Reduce sharpness in specific areas using a digital micromirror device.
• Mitigate artifacts at borders between sharp and blur areas.

Innovation

• Digital micromirror device separates light into sharp and blurred areas.
• Electrically tunable lens adjusts optical power for blur modulation.
• Algorithm mitigates border artifacts caused by lens magnification.