Eyetap

From Free net encyclopedia

The EyeTap is a name for a device that is worn in front of the eye that

  • Acts as a camera to record the scene available to the eye, and
  • Acts as a display to superimpose a Computer-generated imagery on the original scene available to the eye.

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. Image:Aimoneyetap.jpg 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 computing.

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Possible Uses

An EyeTap is somewhat like a Head-Up Display. The important difference is that the scene available to the eye is also available, now, to the computer that projects the Head-up Display. This enables the EyeTap to, in theory, modify the computer generated scene in response to the natural scene. One use, for instance, would be a Sports EyeTap: here the wearer while in a stadium would be able to follow a particular player in a field and have the EyeTap display statistics relevant to that player as a floating box above the player. The eyetap criteria are an attempt to define how close a real, practical device comes to such an ideal. EyeTaps will have great use in any field where the user would benefit from real-time interactive information that is largely visual in nature. This is sometimes referred to as "computer mediated reality".

Using the eyetap as an electric seeing aid, (i.e., wearing it continuously) as one would wear traditional optical eyeglasses, makes lifelong video capture possible. Since many eyetap devices also record EEG (from the occipital lobe) and interface to other sensors (like ECG), the eyetap provides, in addition to other physiological sensors, a lifelong visual record called a CyborgLog. Such a log file is useful for health monitoring or personal safety, giving rise to the notion of "inverse surveillance" (sousveillance—while surveiller means "to watch from above," sousveiller means "to watch from below"). The general idea is a kind of expansion from the "community watch" neighborhood concept, but features the ability of common people to report on the activities of those "above" them, in positions of civil or military authority and power.


Note that the eyetap is not a simple display, although the eyetap does typically contain a computer-controlled laser light source that can synthesize new material in the eye (e.g. change a billboard in view of the wearer into a personal display such as email message). Unfortunately, a manufacturer of head-mounted displays has chosen a very similar name - "eyetop" - (perhaps to capitalize on the popularity of the eyetap name), and this has resulted in much confusion, because people have often (without careful analysis) thought that the eyetap was a display. James Fung has greatly advanced the actual research to the use of an eyetap to display data (using the Reality Window Manager), which runs at around 100 frames per second (more than 3 times faster than NTSC video) for replacement of billboards with Xwindows. Using RWM, it is actually therefore possible to use an eyetap as a display, although the original intent of the eyetap was for use as electric eyeglasses.

The EyeTap principle can also be applied to other forms of electromagnetic energy such as heat, as shown below:

Image:Thermal eyetap.png

Because the device intercepts rays of light that are colinear with rays passing through the exact center of the eye, when you look a glogger right in the eye, you see what looks like a lens or similar optical assembly that appears to be mounted right in their eye socket:

In fact, the iris of the glass lens is mapped exactly to the iris of the eye, which is also the same point that all the rays of laser light pass through on their way to the retina. Optometrist Mel Rapp, of Rapp Optical, is also working on fitting EyeTaps to specific individuals.

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External links

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