Optical-Digital Integrated Design Method for Near-Eye Display Imaging System

Abstract

Near-eye display (NED) systems have various structures, including the freeform prism, off-axis synthesizer, and holographic optical waveguide structures. In this study, the three types of structures of NED systems were analyzed in terms of their advantages and disadvantages. Hence, an optical-digital integrated design method was proposed for the NED imaging system. In particular, a point spread function model with aberration information was developed based on the analysis of optical system aberration. Algorithm preprocessing was conducted on the image-end, and the processed image was transformed into a sharp image by the optical system and sent to the pupil. A NED optical system with a 45 • × 32 • field of view, 10-mm exit pupil diameter, and 30-mm exit pupil distance was developed using the proposed method. This system can meet the NED requirements using three aspherical reflectors instead of a free-form and lens-correction group.INDEX TERMS Optical design, near eye display, computational imaging, point spread function (PSF).