Now that pico projectors are in the market I wonder when....

[smoothy]

I wonder when we'll see HMD's with pico projectors inside them offering the full human visual field of view!

I have been following microvision very closely, who have been creating a MEMS Laser pico projector that never loses focus, it doesn't use a mirror. They working on an HD one.

I have been looking at the 3M MPro 110 Handheld Digital Projector. It's quite affordable and I wonder if you guys think you could make this into a DIY full human visual field of view HMD?????

I think it's possible but the HMD will be massive to the amateur. As I guess you would need two of these pico projectors. Then set them up in a rear projection box type device. and because of throw distance and the safety to your eyes. You would need to place them about 12 inches away from you. And to have something that big on your head would be quite a strain on the head. Then you would need special glasses with curved screens painted white and then have the image displayed on them from the projectors.

Is this really possible to do?

[Likay]

No problem. Just attach the rig with a weight on your backhead to compensate the tilt.
I'm joking but the idea isn't that stupid. When picoprojectors had a few years to develope i think they will have many usages where ordinary projectors won't/can't fit.

[smoothy]

Many thanks for your reply

Can I ask this, do you think it's currently possible to use a pico projector to create a full human visual field of view HMD. I was having a discussion about this yesterday. I believe it's possible to do maybe not with this 3m one as it still needs focusing, and the use of a mirror. Where as the microvision one being developed doesn't need any of these components. Perhaps another pico projector on the market if there is one similar to microvisions that could be designed as a diy project to do what I'm saying. The discussion I had showed that we would need to use a filter that can separate the light source correctly to each eyes curved display with just the right separation to make it stereoscopic. But it should be possible and affordable to do.

[Likay]

If you use one screen with a sort of filter for each eye (shutters, polarized or others) it should be possible. Maybe some optic lenses need to be used to make it possible for the eyes to focus on a closeup screen (readingglasses should do but....).

If you try to split the images so that the right eye will have half image on the screen and the other the other half you'll get into trouble. The desired fov should to get a decent stereoeffect overlap each other which means that the projection have to be really close to the eyes. In that case you need some good optics between the eyes and the small screens because eyes needs to focus and do that longer periods on close up objects is very straining.

[smoothy]

I have been doing some research on this idea and then seeing just how much I can spend on creating such an HMD. I now have looked more into the microvision pico laser projector and as well just saw it demoed on youtube at CES 09. It really is amazing. It's palm sized can be powered on it's built in battery or ac mains cable. It is a wvga projector with a vga port resolution 848x480p and has a image offset so the projector can sit on a tabletop and project to a wall without needing a tripod. It is 60hz. It's built in rechargeable battery lasts 2 hours. it doesn't require focusing. It can project to curved surfaces, and it has many more amazing features. Well now I wonder if this is possible. I was thinking of creating a non stereoscopic setup. I would take a motorbike helmet and paint it's visor with some white cinema projection screen paint. You know the one they use to paint a projection wall. It''s like the cheap diy alternative to getting a screen. Then I would drill some holes into the helmet to create a mount and then place the pico projector onto the mount and have it beam the image through the computers VGA port connected by cable to the visor of the helmet and then I would place the helmet on my head. Now the image doesn't need any focusing. SO I would use sol7 to warp the image and stretch it to cover the whole visor. I would select the best visor with the biggest field of view so I can get the image to wrap around my eyes. Now that should allow me to make the first ever full human visual field of view HMD for under $500 as this will be the cost of the projector when it's released in the second half of this year. I believe with some diy work to a motorbike helmet i could place the projector inside the helmet for front projection and even use two projectors for stereo3d but sol7 can't do stereo 3d at this point in time. I don't even think you need it to be stereoscopic as the image will be wrapped around your eyes it would be so immersive already giving you so much depth. Now I would add to this trackir and then I would have 6DOF in say a flight sim which would be amazing. Now I believe this is all possible as at CES they showed that the proector could be held about 3 inches away from a piece of curved a4 paper and it was able to fill the screen from that small throw distance. So this should be very easy to implement into a HMD. And i think this would make the best diy hmd until someone makes the device into a real consumer manfactuerd product. Please guys help me bring this project to a reality. I would love to get any help and your opinion on if it's possible or not???

Many thanks in advance

EDIT: you may think that 848x480p is a small resolution and the image that close to your eyes would look bad. But I think with 16x anisotropic filtering and 8x FSAA and loads of directx10 effects and post processing it should look really good wouldn't you agree? I know that microvison are working on an HD version of their pico projector but I guess that won't be coming out for a really long time now.

[Okta]

Check this thread where some crazy ideas were thrown around, i remember another one way back too.

http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1983" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[smoothy]

Thanks for the link okta,

I had a little read and it was quite interesting but no where near what I am trying to do, but it would be nice if you guys who know more about this come on in and discuss this idea I have in further depth!

[Okta]

Looks like someone beat you to it http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1640" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[smoothy]

loads of thanks okta that's a really awesome thread. I will be posting there now