EyeTap

EyeTap

An EyeTap is a device that is worn in front of the eye that acts as a camera to record the view available to the eye as well as a display to superimpose computer-generated imagery on the original view available to the eye. This structure allows the user's eye to operate as both a monitor and a camera as the EyeTap intakes the world around it and augments the image the user sees allowing it to overlay computer-generated data over top of the normal world the user would view. The EyeTap is a hard technology to categorize under the three main headers for wearable computing (constancy, augmentation, mediation) for while it is in theory a constancy technology in nature it also has the ability to augment and mediate the reality the user perceives.

In order to capture what the eye is seeing as accurately as possible, an EyeTap uses a beam splitter to send the same scene (with reduced intensity) to both the eye and a camera. The camera then digitizes the reflected image of the scene and sends it to a computer. The computer processes the image and then sends it to a projector. The projector sends the image to the other side of the beam splitter so that this computer-generated image is reflected into the eye to be superimposed on the original scene. Stereo EyeTaps modify light passing through both eyes, but many research prototypes (mainly for reasons of ease of construction) only tap one eye.

EyeTap is also the name of an organization founded by inventor Steve Mann to develop and promote EyeTap-related technologies such as wearable computers.

How It Works

The Eyetap is actually a half-silvered mirror in front of the user's eye, reflecting some of the light into a sensor. The sensor then sends the image to the aremac, a display device capable of displaying data at any adjusting depth. The output rays from the aremac are reflected off the half-silvered mirror back into the eye of the user along with the original light rays.

A conceptual diagram of an EyeTap:

In these cases, the EyeTap views infrared light, as well as the overall design schematic of how the EyeTap manipulates lightrays.

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Written By Bhai Loog