Implementation of Multi-Focal Near-Eye Display Architecture: Optimization of Data Path

Abstract

In this work we describe the concept of a stereoscopic multi-focal head mounted display for augmented reality applications as a means of mitigating the vergence-accommodation conflict (VAC).Investigated are means of a practical implementation of data transfer between the rendering station and direct control logic within the headset. We rely on a DisplayPort connection as a means to transfer the necessary multi-focal image packets in real time, whilst at the receiving end – the control logic is based on an FPGA architecture responsible for decoding the DisplayPort stream and reformatting data according to the optical layout of the display. Within the design we have chosen to omit local frame buffering which potentially can result in misrepresented data, nevertheless, this approach gains a latency reduction of about 16 ms as opposed to single-frame buffering.