Applied Virtual Image Technology by Bugeye

Training-by-doing in the real world is often impractical, expensive or even dangerous - imagine flying a multi-million dollar jet aircraft for the first time. Therefore, the use of simulation based on computer-generated images is widely accepted as the preferred approach. The displayed imagery can be either real images or virtual images. Bugeye Technologies Inc. has developed its products using virtual imagery based on a relatively simple technology of enhancing a displayed image with special lens technology. The complex aspect of this technology is creating effective continuous virtual imagery from multiple displayed images.

The basic components in Bugeye’s product are shown above and include a flat panel display (FPD), typically an LCD that you might use with your desktop computer, a Fresnel lens, and software to generate an image. The lens is positioned to create the desired effect. The software is typically run on a personal computer and might be a video game, computer-aided design (CAD) drawing or any other type of graphical content.

The lens must be a suitable distance away from the eye to allow freedom of movement, but closer to the FPD than its focal length. These distances are designed to create a virtual image at, or near, infinity, thus magnifying the real image. The observed area on the FPD is typically less than the total area of the desired virtual image. The additional visual area on the FPD allows for overlapping of adjacent images to create a seamless and coherent image. An overlapped image allows greater body, head and eye movement, but there is a trade-off between resolution and allowable movement. The overlapping may be achieved making hardware adjustments to the pixels in each display panel, or making software adjustments to the fields of view in each display panel.

The figure below shows how this border problem is solved. The eye's cone of vision through each lens is confined to see only the display part of the FPD so the borders are effectively hidden.

In order to build larger and larger virtual images, computer images are generated in each display panel, rotated and sized to the appropriate display panel, and overlapped to make continuous imagery from an arrangement of independently generated images.

Many versions of display technology have evolved but the most common for use in flight simulators has been one in which the viewer is seated within a dome (spheroid) with the viewer’s eye located at the center of the dome. This approach requires extensive non-linear display mapping to accurately project the terrain imagery on the interior of the dome surface. It also requires continual alignment to maintain reduced-brightness, low resolution, and out-the-window imagery. The approach chosen by Bugeye engineers is a mosaic of flat panel displays surrounding a dome that could be arranged (tessellated) in such a way that all of the vertices of the lenses lie on the surface of the dome.

Most geodesic dome tessellations begin with the icosahedron, or twenty equilateral triangles forming a spheroid. This is possible if you leave the tessellation as triangles. However, if you want to combine the triangles into hexagons, many of the division ratios will not allow this. Another method of tessellating the sphere begins with the dodecahedron, or twelve regular pentagons forming a spheroid.

The Bugeye military tessellation began with a dodecahedron, dividing each pentagon into five triangles, and then dividing each triangle into sixteen equal triangles. The resulting 960 triangles combine into 12 pentagons and 150 hexagons to make the full sphere. A partial sphere can also provide significant benefits.

Bugeye Technologies, Inc has entered market segments with this new and exciting virtual display technology to provide new immersive experiences in visual simulation with the six window, three window, and single window products. The Bugeye products utilize Boeing patented technology.