Meant to be Seen

Hey ALL!

Will a wide flexible fresnel lens work for magnifing just as a regular lens?

I seen one for $40 and would like to mold it into this helmet im using but im not sure if it will distort the image in the middle. Anyone have any experience with these flex lens. Picture a motor cross helmet, I'd like the fresnel to be like a visor on the helmet.

peace out~

OMG!!!! It works!!! A break-through!!!! I just took this $1 credit card size fresnel I have, bent it so it made a "C" shape (concave facing me), and looked at a game on my phone. It's amazing. I swear it must be at least 120 degrees FOV, probably a lot more. Granted the edges were blurry and distorted, but who cares. Real immersion!

It looks a lot better in real-life, but this video should give some idea:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y94Tm2px33U[/youtube]

I am messing around with this too! Best way seems to be keeping it perfectly flat in the middle 60% of the lens or so, bent very slightly in the 10% on either side, and then very curved back on the final 10%. Then, you only distort the edges of the image, the center remains perfect, which is important for most games.

Thats very cool, I guess im gonna buy it and play around with it as well. Were did you get your Palmer, this one im looking at is 6x8 but it doesn't give any information as to focal length and magnification.

http://www.inventables.com/technologies ... esnel-lens" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I purchased several at Barnes and Noble bookstore, but they are not listed on their website. Looks like they vary by location. They came in a pretty generic plastic box, labeled "Flat full page magnifying lens".

Even harder plastic can be bent, though, if you use metal strips on the top and bottom to hold the curvature like I did. To be honest, you would probably be better off getting something less flexible than that, it looks pretty floppy.