Too happy too early...
500 usd or 1080p, let me guess....
Lcos is too delicate to handle with. Three screens are packed in a beamsplitter-box full of controllers, difficult to measure the focal length from it.
I think I will choose oled displays, more stable compared to Lcos. Oled is nothing more than a flat screen. A bit confused by the lcos technology. see pictures below
Cinemizer, 720P is not bad at all + shipping fees from Germany to Belgium......

Yeah, but the Cinemizer is NOT 720P.

I do not understand.
I mean there are:
1080p TV screens,
1080p monitors,
1080p camcorders,
But there is only one 1080p HMD on the market?
Why aren't they just follow the technology of today?

Does the Sony have the real 720p HMD? Hopefully, else I have to wait again and again.

Yes, Sony has a 100% native 720P resolution. It looks great.

Thanks!
I 'll buy it in the near future.

Currently, the accepted input format for HMD's is HDMI 1.4a. This does not have the bandwidth capability to support more than 1080p@30Hz which is not that pleasant. This means for the best experience, halving the resolution would allow you to double the framerate within the bandwidth constraints. Because of this, standard output is 720p@60hz which, when scaled up on a 1080p panel does not look very nice (without lots of AA, but even then...). Thus, in order to produce the best picture quality with the current format, a 720p panel is the logical choice.

Dual DVI or display port are capable of 1080p@60hz but I think (please correct me if I am wrong) there have only been specific model graphics cards that support 3D with dual DVI and as for DP... anyone know?

Not sure if I'm quite understanding correctly... Dual link DVI supports 1920x1080 @ 120hz, from most any DVI video card (I think).

Certainly my GTX460 and my GTX580, can both drive my Alienware monitor @ 1920x1080 @ 120hz.

I'm not saying 1080p@60hz is the maximum capability, I'm saying 1080p@60hz is a minimum for comfort. Dual DVI output is possible with most cards, but can throw up errors when mixing in different 3D formats (and not many of the less expensive consumer HMD's use Dual DVI).

The new mirrors are not ready yet. So I post some old memories from April 2003.
A diy polishing machine able to make any shape of lenses, meniscus, half spheric, two sized, ....
All the lenses were made from casting resin. Similar to the Leep optics, I tried to make a super wide fov viewmaster with 6x6 prints. The primary lens on the polishing machine is a very special one. It has a half spheric hollow side and a spheric size over the middle.
The lens is shaped in the form of the observer's eye socket. Result= Full field of view.

However, the assembly is too heavy and the 'rainbow' abberation at the edges is so annoying.
The process was very exciting and instructive, now I'm able to make a small lens with a drill press and sandpaper sticked on a cylindrical shape. No chisel, no lathe, no milling machine, no cnc, .,.,...

Cool.

Thats rather awesome. Remembering stuff like manually polishing telescope lenses was what made me wonder if we couldn't just 3D print the basic shape of these lenses in future, then put them through a final 'polish' like that, to achieve lenses of the correct shape in a much quicker time than making them from scratch from blanks...

Looking forward to seeing how the mirrors turn out!

Nah, making them from blanks will almost certainly be easier. 3D printing is actually really, really slow, especially for finer objects.

Probably a stupid idea, but what about cutting the basic lens shape from a 3D CNC mill and polishing it down that way?

I imagine casting them is still WAY easier, but using a CNC, you make design modifications quickly and without needing to fabricate new molds.

The issue with 3 axis mills is you always end up with the tool profile in the final piece, the usual way you get "smooth" shapes on a 3 Axis mill is to rough it out then use a small ball nosed cutter with a very small over lap to produce the final profile. That would not be accurate enough for the outside of a lens.
I guess you could likely do a final polish, to get the effect but I have to wonder if the mill would actually save you any time.

You probably be better off using some sort of single point cutter to rough the shape i.e. a lathe, but again your still going to need the final polish pass.

Yeah, that's a good point. A lathe isn't a bad idea, though. How are prototype lenses typically fabricated?

Thanks for your comments,

Cnc is ideal but in 2003 when I was a teenager, there was no money for cnc and no 3D printer.
I could only use some hobby materials and my brains.

Material list
the casting resin for lenses: 12 euro
diy spinning lens holder (fibreboard): 15 euro
diy vacuum forming pump and ring hole (1mm aluminum): 15 euro
polishing and sandpaper (p40 to p1000): 25 euro
silicone mold (standard bathroom silicone) : 5 euro
+ drill from my parents.

Fabrication of the resin casted lens (March 2003):
1. The lens material index is calculated, then the curvature of the lens surface is drawn on paper (diameter is very important).
2. Vacuumforming by blowing surface into a hemisphere with custom diameter ring hole.
2 (note) The diameter of the lens itsself and the diameter of the vacuum formed hemisphere are custom.
How smaller the hemisphere, how stronger the lens.
3. make a cylindrical shape and glue it WITHOUT GAPS on the inner side (for convex) or outher side(for concave) of the hemisphere.
4. Take the glued hemisphere and cylinder apart from the rest of the hemisphere around the cylinder by cutting (with siccors).
5. Put it into a mold like a ship (not over the open surface of the cylinder). you can put weights for maintain it right.
6. If the mold is dry, you can remove the 'ship'.
7. Poor the casting resin.
8. Let it dry.
9. remove it from the mold and grind the upper surface.
10. Fix it on a drillshaft (in the center) and let it spin.
11. Grind it with a sandpaper fixed on a metal shape with the same curvature as the lens.
12 polish in the same way.
13 remove from shaft and grind/polish the flat surface on a horizontal grinding/polishing disc.

I'll send an illustration because it is complicated that way .

The Focal length is the most difficult part

Yes, I know. I was responding to Okta's idea of projecting the microdisplay's image onto a flat white curved surface instead of a mirror, and that it would not work unless you added another lens anyway.

I have previously mentioned the idea of using the flexible OLED displays for a Head Mounted Display. This would hopefully solve the issue of light on one portion of a projected image from somewhat washing out other portions of the screen. However, this technology has not been coming as fast as hoped. The writer in the article below says Samsung's late 2012 launch has been put off to perhaps early 2013. And even then, the mass market being perhaps delayed to 2014 or later.

Of course we have CES 2013 coming up in Jan. Perhaps there will be some surprises.

http://www.oled-info.com/thoughts-about ... -plausible

Joe Dunfee

I just checked the pictures again I see how it works now, i would be looking into a mirror with the image set at the correct focal length.

3dpmaster: when you say focal length is the biggest problem, do you mean the interfaces on areas of all the reflectors matching up or over all?

The Issue is the focal plane. Some beams from the observer's eye (set to infinity) have a larger focal length than other beams also set to infinity. With the technique of Mr. Hajime N., most of the rays are inverted to +/- infinity before they reach the collimated lens.

The idea to set two micro projectors on the top of the head to project the image to a curved screen is not bad. If we use a pair of reading eye glasses, we can bring the curved screen closer to the observer's eye. The best screen to use, is a toroidal curved screen. The projector lens has to be FISHEYE to get a wide projection at short distance. I have to try this technique, I hope It will works also.

Correction, the focal POINTS are not on a planar surface. Image below.