Optical Image Processing Using Light Modulation Displays

We propose to enhance the capabilities of the human visual system by performing optical image processing directly on an observed scene. Unlike previous work which additively superimposes imagery on a scene, or completely replaces scene imagery with a manipulated version, we perform all manipulation through the use of a light modulation display to spatially filter incoming light. We demonstrate a number of perceptually-motivated algorithms including contrast enhancement and reduction, object highlighting for preattentive emphasis, color saturation, de-saturation, and de-metamerization, as well as visual enhancement for the color blind. A camera observing the scene guides the algorithms for on-the-fly processing, enabling dynamic application scenarios such as monocular scopes, eyeglasses, and windshields.