fgummett
08-15-2009, 06:19 AM
The new vision of artificial sight technology -- CBC News... (http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/08/12/f-artificial-vision.html)
http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/photos/2009/08/12/f-evspex-evision.jpg
http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/photos/2009/08/12/f-vision-improve.jpg
These illustrations show what a person with impaired vision, left, might see with the help of an eSight electronic aid, at right.
Millions of people in North America have vision problems glasses can't correct, but that electronic devices might help.
Vision aids that use electronics and software to enhance images have been cumbersome in the past, but they are getting easier to wear and more powerful.
An Ottawa startup called eSight is one of the companies bringing computer-assisted vision technology to market. It hopes to complete a prototype this summer of a vision aid that looks like a pair of stylish sunglasses, with the addition of an electronic device that clips to your belt.
The glasses have a built-in miniature camera, and image processing software running on the belt-mounted unit that will manipulate that camera's image in different ways to help people with various vision impairments see better. For instance, the software can enhance contrast, make the edges of objects more visible and even zoom in on a specific part of the field of vision. This helps patients with conditions like diabetic retinopathy that make vision blurry.
Ordinary optical lenses can enlarge an image and improve its contrast to a point, but that's the limit of the improvements they can offer, says the company's president, Rob Hilkes. With software, "we can quite dramatically play with brightness and contrast, so that the image that you see is quite different from what you would see with an optical lens," he says.
The eSight system can also perform special tricks aimed at solving other problems. For instance, advanced macular degeneration creates a blind spot right in the middle of the patient's field of vision. It's as if a cloud was hovering right in front of you, blocking your view of whatever you look at directly. People with this condition often learn to compensate by looking to one side of whatever they actually want to look at, so the object is outside the blind spot.
eSight is working on software — it won't be in this summer's prototype but should be in the final commercial product, Hilkes says — that maps the image captured by its camera to fit around the blind spot, so the words on a printed page would appear to curve around a central hole in the person's field of view.
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http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/photos/2009/08/12/f-evspex-evision.jpg
http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/photos/2009/08/12/f-vision-improve.jpg
These illustrations show what a person with impaired vision, left, might see with the help of an eSight electronic aid, at right.
Millions of people in North America have vision problems glasses can't correct, but that electronic devices might help.
Vision aids that use electronics and software to enhance images have been cumbersome in the past, but they are getting easier to wear and more powerful.
An Ottawa startup called eSight is one of the companies bringing computer-assisted vision technology to market. It hopes to complete a prototype this summer of a vision aid that looks like a pair of stylish sunglasses, with the addition of an electronic device that clips to your belt.
The glasses have a built-in miniature camera, and image processing software running on the belt-mounted unit that will manipulate that camera's image in different ways to help people with various vision impairments see better. For instance, the software can enhance contrast, make the edges of objects more visible and even zoom in on a specific part of the field of vision. This helps patients with conditions like diabetic retinopathy that make vision blurry.
Ordinary optical lenses can enlarge an image and improve its contrast to a point, but that's the limit of the improvements they can offer, says the company's president, Rob Hilkes. With software, "we can quite dramatically play with brightness and contrast, so that the image that you see is quite different from what you would see with an optical lens," he says.
The eSight system can also perform special tricks aimed at solving other problems. For instance, advanced macular degeneration creates a blind spot right in the middle of the patient's field of vision. It's as if a cloud was hovering right in front of you, blocking your view of whatever you look at directly. People with this condition often learn to compensate by looking to one side of whatever they actually want to look at, so the object is outside the blind spot.
eSight is working on software — it won't be in this summer's prototype but should be in the final commercial product, Hilkes says — that maps the image captured by its camera to fit around the blind spot, so the words on a printed page would appear to curve around a central hole in the person's field of view.
...