Membrane AR: Varifocal, Wide-Field- of-the- View Augmented Reality Display from Deformable Membranes

DCEXPO Special Prize in SIGGRAPH 2017 Emerging Technologies

For the DCEXPO Special Prize in SIGGRAPH 2017 Emerging Technologies

Digital Content Association of Japan (DCAJ) and ACM SIGGRAPH revised
Cooperation Agreement in 2014, and started cooperation between DCEXPO
Innovative Technologies (I-Tech) and SIGGRAPH Emerging Technologies (E-Tech).
ACM SIGGRAPH selects one distinguished technical exhibit at DCEXPO and
shows it in the E-Tech Program at the next SIGGRAPH and DCAJ selects one
distinguished E-Tech exhibit at SIGGRAPH and allocates a booth to it at the next
DCEXPO.
At DCEXPO 2017, the DCEXPO Special Prize winner selected from E-Tech exhibits
in SIGGRAPH 2017 will be commended at the ceremony on Oct.27.

ACM SIGGRAPH

Abstract

Some fundamental limitations of existing near-eye displays for augmented reality are
limited field of view, low angular resolution, and fixed focal state. This project introduces an
all-in- one solution: deformable beamsplitters. It is a new hybrid hardware design created by
combining hyperbolic half-silvered mirrors and deformable membrane mirrors (DMMs). The

key components are two see-through DMMs controlled by airtight cavities to change the
effective focal power and present a virtual image at a target depth plane. The benefits of
the membranes include a wide field of view and fast depth switching.