This invention has incorporated projective optics and phase conjugate material thus eliminating the requisite use of an external phase conjugate material to provide a see-through head mounted projective display. A key component of the invention is the use of optical imaging technology in combination with projective optics to make this revolutionary technology work. In previous head mounted projective displays the phase conjugate material had to be placed in the environment to display images, but in this invention one is not limited to the use of an external phase conjugate material but further extends its use to outdoor see-through augmented reality to produce images using the see-through head mounted projective display system. Furthermore, this invention extends the use of projective head mounted displays to clinical guided surgery, surgery medical, an outdoor augmented see-through virtual environment for military training and wearable computers.
This invention is a Divisional Application of U.S. application Ser. No. 10/418,623 filed Apr. 19, 2003, now allowed, which is a Continuation-In-Part(CIP) of U.S. application Ser. No. 10/090,070 filed Mar. 1, 2002, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,731,434 which claims the benefit of priority of U.S. Provisional Application 60/292,942 filed May 23, 2001, and was funded in part by grant number 6502562 awarded by the Army STRICOM SNE.
An exemplary embodiment of the invention relates to an on-axis or near on-axis optical head mounted projection display optical assembly for transmitting and magnifying a real image to an eye. The assembly comprises a miniature display, a projection lens for receiving the light rays from the display, a second lens positioned to receive the light from the projection lens, a beam splitter positioned for receiving and splitting the light rays from the second lens, a retro-reflective screen positioned for receiving the reflected portion of the split light rays from the beam splitter, and then reflecting the portion of split light rays wherein the portion of split light rays passes through the beam splitter. A third lens is positioned to receive the portion of split light rays from the retro-reflective screen and through the beam splitter.
A monolithic optical element for an eyepiece in a head mounted display system has a body, in which a first surface of the body receives light from a display device, the light passes through a second surface of the body to an eye of a user, and a reflective folding surface is located optically between the first surface and the second surface. The reflective folding surface folds an optical path between the first surface and the second surface. Finally, a diffractive optical element is provided on at least one of the first surface or the second surface. The use of the diffractive optical surface enables the eyepiece element to be constructed of a single optical substrate material, yet function over a broad color spectrum with superior resolution and minimal distortion over a large field of view.
