Optical: systems and elements – Single channel simultaneously to or from plural channels – By partial reflection at beam splitting or combining surface
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-12
2001-05-29
Epps, Georgia (Department: 2873)
Optical: systems and elements
Single channel simultaneously to or from plural channels
By partial reflection at beam splitting or combining surface
C359S631000, C359S633000, C359S727000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06239915
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a composite display apparatus incorporating an image pickup optical system for taking in light from image information of the outside to form an image thereof on an image pickup device and a display optical system for permitting an observer to observe the image information displayed on a display device such as a liquid crystal panel or the like, which is constructed in compact size as a whole, and, more particularly, to such apparatus suitably applicable to devices called head-mounted displays and goggle-type displays.
2. Related Background Art
The devices suggested heretofore include a device constructed in such structure that a compact CCD camera is mounted on a head-mounted display (HMD) and image information obtained from the compact CCD camera is displayed in the HMD as it is or a device constructed in such structure that the image information obtained from the compact CCD camera is processed and converted into some image information and the image information thus converted is displayed in the HMD. In addition, there are also a variety of suggestions about a seethrough HMD (the HMD having structure for permitting the light from the outside to be observed directly at the angular magnification
1
) as a type of the HMD.
The HMD of this type will suffer parallax if the eye-ball optical axis of the display optical system for observing the image information displayed on the display device of the HMD is offset against the optical axis of the CCD camera for imaging the image information of the outside on the CCD surface. The devices having both the image pickup optical system and the display optical system without the parallax are suggested, for example, in Japanese Laid-open Patent Applications No. 4-22358 and No. 5-303053.
In the display optical system suggested in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 4-22358, light emitted from a compact liquid crystal panel is guided via a flat half mirror and thereafter to the eye by an eyepiece. On the other hand, the image pickup optical system is arranged so that the light from the outside is guided via a flat half mirror and thereafter is focused on a compact camera. Since this flat half mirror was mounted at 45°, the scale of the apparatus tended to become large. In addition, the seethrough optical system was unable to be established, because there was the eyepiece in front of the eye.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 5-303053 discloses the structure that permits the seethrough optical system to be established, but the optical system was complex and the apparatus tended to become very large.
Further, in cases where a reflective liquid crystal panel was used as a display element, a separate illumination optical system had to be mounted and thus the scale of the overall apparatus tended to become large.
With the image observing apparatus including the HMDs and the like, a significant challenge is to decrease the scale and weight of the overall apparatus, because the apparatus is mounted on the head of the observer. There are also desires for compact apparatus having no parallax and permitting establishment of the seethrough optical system.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is, therefore, to provide a composite display apparatus that permits the observer to observe the image information of the outside and the image information displayed on the display element both in a good condition while being constructed in compact size as a whole, by properly setting the structure of the image pickup optical system for imaging the image information of the outside on the surface of the image pickup device such as a CCD sensor and the structure of the display optical system including a prism body having a plurality of decentered reflective surfaces for guiding the light from the display element to the eye of the observer on the occasion of observation of the image information displayed on the display element such as the liquid crystal display or the like.
A composite display apparatus of the present invention is:
(1-1) a composite display apparatus comprising display means for displaying image information, a display optical system for guiding light from the display means to the eye of an observer, and an image pickup optical system for focusing light from the outside on an image pickup device, wherein an optical axis of the image pickup optical system is substantially aligned with an axis as an extension of the eye-ball optical axis in an optical path of the display optical system, the apparatus further comprises optical path separating means for separating an optical path of the image pickup optical system from the optical path of the display optical system, each of the display optical system and the image pickup optical system has a plurality of decentered reflective surfaces having curvature, the light from the display means is alternately folded in directions along the eye-ball optical axis by the plurality of reflective surfaces including the optical path separating means, of the display optical system to be guided to the eye, the light from the outside is alternately folded in directions different from an observation direction by said plurality of reflective surfaces including said optical path separating means, the image pickup optical system has a stop and a rear optical system placed behind the stop, the image pickup optical system comprises a surface having a negative power and a surface having a positive power in order toward the stop in the optical path before said stop, and said rear optical system is a refracting optical system or a reflecting optical system having a positive power.
Particularly, the composite display apparatus is characterized:
(1-1-1) in that said image pickup optical system comprises a refractive surface having a negative power and a reflective surface having a positive power;
(1-1-2) in that said image pickup optical system comprises a reflective surface having a negative power and a reflective surface having a positive power;
(1-1-3) in that said plurality of decentered reflective surfaces having curvature are surfaces having powers differing depending upon azimuths about the vertex of surface;
(1-1-4) in that said display optical system and said image pickup optical system comprises a prism having three or more different optical surfaces each having a power;
(1-1-5) in that one surface of said image pickup optical system is a surface forming said optical path separating means;
(1-1-6) in that said image pickup optical system is arranged to adjust focus by use of said rear optical system;
(1-1-7) in that a reflective surface of said image pickup optical system, a reflective surface of said display optical system, and said optical path separating means are comprised of a common surface;
(1-1-8) by comprising a seethrough optical system for guiding the light from the outside through said optical path separating means to the eye so as to permit the observer to observe the outside;
(1-1-9) by comprising transmitting means for transmitting the image information from said image pickup optical system to said display means;
(1-1-10) in that a view angle of an image of the outside displayed through said transmitting means is equal to or smaller than a view angle at which the light from the outside is incident directly to the eye;
(1-1-11) in that said display means comprises a reflective display element, the apparatus comprises an illumination optical system for guiding illumination light to the display element, the illumination optical system shares a partial optical system with said image pickup optical system and said display optical system, the illumination optical system is separated from the optical path of said display optical system by said first optical path separating means, and the illumination optical system is separated from said image pickup optical system by second optical path separating means;
(1-1-12) in that at least one of said first and second optical path separating means is a pol
Takagi Akinari
Yamazaki Shoichi
Epps Georgia
Fitzpatrick ,Cella, Harper & Scinto
Mixed Reality Systems Laboratory Inc.
Thompson Timothy
LandOfFree
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