High dynamic range head mounted display based on dual-layer spatial modulation

The human visual system can perceive a much wider range of contrast than the addressable dynamic range afforded by the state-of-art head mounted displays (HMD). Increasing the dynamic range of HMDs becomes critical especially for augmented reality applications where the dynamic range of outdoor scenes can be as large as 14 orders of magnitude. In this paper, we present the integrated work of the design, implementation, calibration, and image-rendering algorithm of a high dynamic range HMD system. By using a pair of LCoS microdisplays as the spatial light modulators, accompanied with the relay optics to optically overlay the modulation layers, we demonstrate the reconstruction of high dynamic range images with high accuracy.