JPH06125516A - Retina display device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a compact retina display device forming video of high image quality and reducing cost. CONSTITUTION:The video signal inputted from an input terminal 9 is converted into visible light by an LED 52. A light emitting panel 41 where the LED 52 is arranged in a matrix state in an X-Y axis direction scans on a retina 25 by successively operating the LED 52 based on a video signal. A convergent optical system 8 is moved and controlled along a Z-axis by an automatic focus adjusting means 10 so as to collect visible light by the convergent optical system 8 and to focus on the retina 25.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a retinal display device, and more particularly to a retinal display device capable of projecting a visible ray directly onto the retina of an eyeball to focus a desired image.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A general display device requires a display device such as a cathode ray tube and an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) panel. Since these display devices occupy a large space, the entire image display device becomes large, and a large space is required at the installation location.

Therefore, in order to make the image display device lightweight, compact and portable, a retinal display device which does not require a display device is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 4-22919 and 4-23579.
It has been proposed in the issue. These devices are configured to directly project the image on the liquid crystal panel onto the retina of the eyeball.

[0004]

However, the above-mentioned retinal display device using a liquid crystal panel requires a light source such as a backlight and a means for guiding light emitted from the light source. Therefore, due to the complicated structure, there is a problem that the entire device becomes large and the cost becomes high. In addition, since the liquid crystal has a slow response speed, it is difficult to obtain a high quality image.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide a low-cost and compact retinal display device for forming a high-quality image.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, the retinal display device of the present invention is a retinal display device for recognizing an image by scanning and irradiating a visible ray directly onto the retina of an eyeball to display an image signal. It is characterized by comprising a light emitting means in which light emitting elements which are converted into the visible light and are sequentially driven by a video signal are arranged in a matrix.

The display device of the present invention is a retinal display device for recognizing an image by scanning and irradiating a visible light directly onto an image forming area defined by two directions on the retina of the eyeball. Light-emitting means that is formed by arranging light-emitting elements that are converted into the visible light rays and are sequentially driven by a video signal so as to correspond to one direction of the image forming area, and visible light rays emitted from the light-emitting means. And an optical deflector for optically scanning the image forming area in the other direction.

Further, the converging optical system for condensing the visible light emitted from the light emitting means and the converging optical system are driven so that the visible light condensed by the converging optical system is focused on the retina. It is preferable to have a structure including an automatic focus adjusting means for controlling.

[0009]

According to this structure, the light emitting means includes:
Since the light emitting elements that convert the image signal into visible light are arranged in a matrix, it is possible to form an image on the retina without separately providing a light source.

Further, the visible light converted from the image signal by the light emitting means and scanned is condensed by the converging optical system. At that time, the automatic focusing means drives the converging optical system to focus the visible light on the retina. At this time, it is possible to keep the visible light in focus on any part of the retina, and in such a case, the entire recognized image will be displayed regardless of eye characteristics such as visual acuity. Is always in focus.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing the configuration of the main part thereof.

The retinal display device of this embodiment is shown in FIG.
Also, as shown in FIG. 2, the retina display device recognizes an image by scanning and irradiating the retina 25 of the eyeball 20 directly with the visible light. The image signal input from the input terminal 9 is converted into visible light. Light-emitting diode (hereinafter,
It is characterized by including a light emitting panel 41 in which 52 "LEDs" are arranged in a matrix. Further, the converging optical system 8 that condenses the visible light emitted from the light emitting panel 41, and the converging optical system 8 is driven and controlled so that the visible light condensed by the converging optical system 8 is focused on the retina 25. The automatic focus adjusting device 10 is provided.

The LED 52 is a light emitting element that emits a monochromatic visible ray whose brightness is modulated by the video signal amplified by the amplifier 1. This LED 52, as shown in FIG.
The light emitting panel 41 is configured by being provided on the substrate 53 in a two-dimensional matrix in the X and Y axis directions. Then, each LED 52 sequentially operates along the X- and Y-axis directions based on the video signal to scan the retina 25. It should be noted that in the figure, only the eyeball 20, the half mirror 42, and the light emitting panel 41 are shown, and the focusing optical system 8 and the like are omitted.

Further, instead of the LED 52, another light emitting element such as a semiconductor laser may be used. In this case, if the spread of the beam due to diffraction can be ignored, the laser beam spot is formed on the retina 25 by using only the sharp directivity of the laser beam itself without using the converging optical system 8 and the automatic focusing means 10. You may. However, in consideration of the size of the laser beam spot with respect to the size of the retina 25, in order to form a highly accurate image, the focusing optical system 8 is used to form a finer beam spot on the retina 25. Preferably. The light emitting panel 41 is not limited to the light emitting panel 41, and other light emitting means may be used as long as the light emitting elements such as the LEDs 52 are arranged in a matrix.

The LED 52 used in this embodiment is
Although it emits monochromatic light, as shown in FIG. 4, by the video signals R, G, B input from the input terminal 9 (FIG. 1),
LEDs 2R, 2 that emit light in the three primary colors of R, G, B respectively
G and 2B may be used to perform a color display. In this case, instead of one LED 52 (Fig. 2), one
One set of LEDs 2R, 2G, and 2B constitutes one pixel.

The video signal input from the input terminal 9 is sent from a video signal source such as a television camera, a television tuner, a VTR or the like. The structure of the input terminal 9 is preferably a connector structure so that it can be detachably connected to the output terminal of the video signal source. By adopting a connector structure, handling becomes easy and the entire device can be made compact and portable. Further, since the video signal source can be selected as appropriate, the applications can be diversified.

The converging optical system 8 is provided for each LE of the light emitting panel 41.
The visible light emitted from D52 is condensed to form a minute beam spot on the retina 25. At the same time, it also functions as a focusing lens that moves in the optical axis direction by the optical system driving means 7 described later.

The automatic focusing means 10 is an optical system for moving the converging optical system 8 along the direction of its optical axis (here, it coincides with the optical axis of the eyeball 20 and is parallel to the Z axis). System drive means 7, photosensor 4 that receives reflected light from retina 25 via half mirror 42, and detector 5 that outputs a signal according to the light receiving area of photosensor 4.
And a focus control circuit (Z-axis controller) 6 for controlling the operation of the optical system driving means 7 based on the signal from the detector 5.
It consists of and.

As shown in FIG. 1, the reflected light from the retina 25 travels backward through the elements such as the converging optical system 8 that guides the visible light from the LED 52 toward the retina 25, so that it is on the downstream side of the light emitting panel 41. By the half mirror 42 arranged in
It is separated from the optical path from the ED 52 to the retina 25. That is, the half mirror 42 functions as a beam splitter. The separated reflected light is used for focus detection as follows.

FIG. 3 shows the positional relationship between the retina 25 and the photosensor 4. The half mirror 42 and the like are omitted in the figure. The photosensor 4 is used as a unit in which a plurality of photodiode elements 4a are arranged in an array as shown in FIG. Visible rays B1, B2, B3 emitted from a predetermined LED 52 and converged and reflected toward the surface of the retina 25 by the converging optical system 8 are irradiated on the photosensor 4 after being reflected by the half mirror 42. Here, in the case of the front focus, the incident light B1 on the retina 25 is the reflected light B1.
3, the area A1 of the photosensor 4 is illuminated. In the case of focusing, the incident light B2 on the retina 25 is the reflected light B2.
And returns to the optical path to illuminate the range A2 of the photosensor 4.
In the case of the back focus, the incident light B3 on the retina 25 becomes the reflected light B1 and illuminates the range A3 of the photosensor 4.

As described above, the focus state can be known by the difference in the irradiation area (A1>A2> A3) with respect to the photosensor 4. That is, among the plurality of photodiode elements 4a arranged in an array, a signal indicating light receiving area information such as which one has received light or how many have received light is detected as shown in FIG. It is sent from the device 5 to the focus control circuit 6, and the focus control circuit 6 operates the optical system driving means 7 based on the signal. By thus feeding back the focus shift of the eye, the focus adjustment is performed on the entire surface of the image formed on the retina 25, and the focused state of the beam spot is maintained.

As shown in FIG. 2, after the image forming area 30 defined by the X-Y axes on the retina 25 is scanned once, based on the data learned by memory during the scanning,
The focus may be adjusted during the second and subsequent scans. For example, fuzzy control may be adopted. Also,
The focus detection and focus adjustment may be performed every predetermined time or every predetermined number of scans. According to these configurations, the operation of the optical system driving means 7 can be performed at high speed and smoothly.

As the optical system driving means 7 (FIG. 1), for example, a structure in which a lens frame to which the converging optical system 8 is fixed is moved back and forth along the optical axis by a motor-driven cam is adopted. be able to. As an automatic focus adjustment device,
An automatic focus adjustment device used in a CD (Compact Disk) player or the like can be used.

When the retina 25 is irradiated with visible light, information is transmitted from the photoreceptor cells (not shown) at the back of the retina 25 to the optic nerve 22. The focus depth can be set in advance from the relationship between the beam spot diameter of visible light formed on the retina 25 and the size of photoreceptor cells, and the focus control circuit 6 can perform focus adjustment based on the focus depth. Focusing may be performed on the entire surface of the image formed on the retina 25 (all points of the image forming area 30 in FIG. 2), but for example, the image may be partially defocused according to the image (that is, a predetermined amount). LE of
It is also possible to generate a predetermined depth of field and recognize the perspective by removing the focus only on D52.

The LED 52 to be emitted is selected by selecting the XY axis controller 11, the X axis driver 12, and the Y axis driver 1.
It is done by 3. That is, the XY axis controller 1
1 (FIG. 1), the X-axis driver 12 and the Y-axis driver 13 drive the LED 52. Then, as shown in FIG. 2, the visible light sequentially emitted from each LED 52 forms a raster by irradiating and scanning the image forming area 30, and the image visually developed two-dimensionally in space. As an observer. The scanning with visible light is performed in a fixed order with a deflection frequency of about 30 Hz.

The same image forming areas 30 of the left and right eyes 20
Alternatively, visible light may be emitted to the left and right eyes, but parallax is caused by causing the left and right eyeballs 20 to have a predetermined amount of deviation in the image forming regions 30, and as a result, a stereoscopic image and perspective are obtained. It is possible to recognize images with

Further, by fixing the device of this embodiment to the head so as not to obstruct the field of view of the eyeball 20, it is possible to perform superimposed display for what is actually being viewed. For example, even if the image is overlapped with the entire field of view or the edge of the field of view, the eyes are focused on both the object actually being viewed and the projected image, which imposes a burden on the eyes. You can always see both things and images without hanging.

As described above, in this embodiment, since the method of scanning and irradiating the visible light from the LED 52 directly onto the retina 25 is adopted, a clear image can be always viewed regardless of the orientation of the face. Moreover, the LED 5 used as the light emitting element
Since No. 2 has a faster response speed than liquid crystal, a high quality image can be formed on the retina 25. Since it is not necessary to provide a light source separately, it is possible to have an ultra-compact structure, and if it is used by fixing it to the head, no installation place is required.
Further, although characteristics such as visual acuity and retina shape are different for each person (that is, for each eyeball), in the present embodiment, since the focus adjustment is performed by the reflected light from the retina 25,
Anyone can view a proper image without depending on such characteristics.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the second embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, the light emitting panel 41a is used.
The visible light radiated from the device is deflected to electrically scan the image forming area 30 defined in the X and Y axis directions on the retina 25 in the X axis direction and optically scan the Y axis direction. It is characterized in that it comprises an optical deflecting device 18 for carrying out.

In the light emitting panel 41a, the LED 52 is X
The structure is similar to that of the light emitting panel 41 of the first embodiment except that the structure is arranged in a line in one line in the axial direction. Therefore, in the X-axis direction, the retina 2 is generated by successively illuminating the LEDs 52 as in the first embodiment.
5 is electrically scanned, but in the Y-axis direction, the retina 25 is optically scanned by the deflection by the optical deflecting device 18.

The optical deflector 18 is composed of an XY axis controller 11, a Y axis driver 13, a direct motor 15 and a Y axis prism 17, and the light emitting panel 41a in the image forming area 30 in the X axis direction. Scanning irradiation is performed on the retina 25 by electrically scanning through the optical axis and optically scanning in the Y-axis direction. The light deflecting device 18 includes a Y-axis prism 17 having three reflecting surfaces, and a Y-axis prism 1 so that the visible light is deflected by the reflecting surface.
Direct motor 15 for driving 7 and its motor 15
And a Y-axis driver 13 for driving. Furthermore, Y
An XY axis controller 11 for synchronously controlling the operation of the axis driver 13 based on a video signal is provided. As the direct motor 15, a thin motor used in a CD player or the like can be used.

The Y-axis prism 17 is an optical deflector having a regular triangular prism shape. Therefore, the scanning of one side in the Y-axis direction of the image forming area 30 is completed at the rotation angle of 120 °. Not only the optical deflector such as the Y-axis prism 17, but also a regular triangular prism having three reflecting surfaces, a rotating polygon mirror, a galvano scanner, a laser printer, a facsimile, an electronic copying machine, etc. The optical deflector used in the above may be used. The configuration in which the plane mirror is rotated within a predetermined angle range, like the galvano scanner, is more compact than the configuration in which the Y-axis prism 17 scans by rotating in one direction. Is possible.

On the other hand, the X-Y axis controller 11 separates the sync signal from the video signal, and the Y-axis driver 13 drives the Y-axis motor 15 by the sync signal. The visible light from the LED 52 is the Y-axis motor 1
Deflection is carried out by the Y-axis prism 17 which rotates in one direction by 5. The deflected visible light scans the image forming area 30 to form a raster, and the visible space 2
Let the viewer recognize as a three-dimensionally developed image.

As shown in FIG. 5, the reflected light from the retina 25 travels in reverse through the elements such as the prism 17 that guides visible light from the light emitting panel 41a toward the retina 25, so that it is downstream of the light emitting panel 41a. By the prism 3 arranged on the side,
It is separated from the optical path from the light emitting panel 41a to the retina 25. That is, the prism 3 functions as a beam splitter. The separated reflected light is used for focus detection in the same manner as in the first embodiment, and focus adjustment is performed.

As described above, in this embodiment, since the compact light emitting panel 41a is used, it is possible to make the apparatus compact and reduce the cost according to the application.

The retina display device of the present invention is a video display device used for virtual reality or the like; TV, VT.
Video display device used for R, personal computer, movie, security system, presentation tool, etc .; 3D TV
It can be suitably used for a display device for a control panel of an automobile, an airplane, a spacecraft, a ship, a railway, etc. In particular, it is suitable for applications that require constant display in the field of view.

[0037]

As described above, according to the present invention, in a retinal display device for recognizing an image by scanning and irradiating a visible ray directly onto the retina of an eyeball, the image signal is converted into the visible ray and the image is detected. Since the light-emitting elements sequentially driven by signals are arranged in a matrix to provide light-emitting means, a low-cost and compact retinal display device that forms a high-quality image can be realized.

Further, in the retinal display device for recognizing an image by directly scanning and irradiating an image forming region defined by two directions on the retina of the eyeball with visible light,
A light emitting device that converts a video signal into the visible light and is sequentially driven by the video signal is arranged in a line so as to correspond to one direction of the image forming area, and the light emitting device emits the light. And a light deflecting device for deflecting visible light to optically scan the image forming area in the other direction, thereby making it possible to use a compact light emitting means. It is possible to reduce the size and cost according to the requirements.

Further, the converging optical system for condensing the visible light emitted from the light emitting means, and the converging optical system is driven so that the visible light condensed by the converging optical system is focused on the retina. With the configuration including the automatic focus adjusting means for controlling, it is unnecessary to perform optical adjustment such as diopter correction and aberration correction according to eye characteristics such as myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism
It is possible to realize a compact retinal display device that forms an appropriate image.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing the configuration of a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a main part configuration of a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a relationship between a photo sensor used in an embodiment of the present invention and a front focus, a focus, and a rear focus.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing a configuration of a light emitting device for color display which can be used in an example of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram schematically showing the configuration of a second embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 ... Amplifier 2R, 2G, 2B ... LED 3 ... Prism 4 ... Photo sensor 5 ... Detector 6 ... Focus control circuit 7 ... Optical system drive means 8 ... Convergence optical system 9 ... Input terminal 18 ... Optical deflection device 11 ... X- Y-axis controller 12 ... X-axis driver 13 ... Y-axis driver 15 ... Y-axis direct motor 17 ... Y-axis prism 20 ... Eyeball 22 ... Optic nerve 25 ... Retina 30 ... Image forming area 41, 41a ... Light emitting panel 42 ... Half mirror

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. In a retinal display device for recognizing an image by scanning and irradiating a visible light directly onto the retina of an eyeball, a matrix of light emitting elements which convert an image signal into the visible light and are sequentially driven by the image signal. A retinal display device comprising a light emitting means arranged in a pattern. 2. A retinal display device for recognizing an image by directly irradiating an image forming area defined by two directions on the retina of an eyeball with visible light, and converting an image signal into the visible light. A light emitting device in which light emitting elements sequentially driven by a video signal are arranged in a line so as to correspond to one direction of the image forming area, and visible light emitted from the light emitting device is deflected to produce the image. A retina display device comprising: a light deflection device that optically scans the formation region in another direction. 3. A converging optical system that condenses the visible light emitted from the light emitting means, and the converging optical system so that the visible light condensed by the converging optical system is focused on the retina. The retina display device according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising: an automatic focus adjusting means for driving and controlling the.