Augmented Reality - Epson Moverio BT-300

[avshadler]

40 cm is good for hand held reading of 10 point type . When the reading distance is decoupled from the need to hold something in your hand -- and the person is looking more in the forward direction than down, the average measured chosen reading distance is greater than 50 cm for the equivalent of ten point type.

See: For normative data on reading 10 point type from a hand held document: SOME NORMATIVE DATA ON READING DISTANCE
DONALD H. SCHUSTER, GEORGE G. KARAS DOUGLAS C. ANTONELLI
Iowa Stare University IBM Systems Development
Division, Rochester, Minn. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1969, 28, 202.

Hand held reading distance for ten point type is slightly less for young -- high school graduate -- women that for hs grad. young men -- possibly because the women have arms that are about 10-12% shorter.

For normative data on reading 12 point type from printed document taped to a vertical screen and the same document held in the hands. See: "Working distance and eye and head movements during near work in myopes and non-myopes", Andreas Hartwig, et al, Clinical and Experimental Optometry 94.6 November 2011

and "Analysis of head position used by myopes and emmetropes when performing a near-vision reading task"Andreas Hartwig, et al,Vision Research 51 (2011) 1712–1717

The weight, bulk and cost of the system varies in some respects as the cube of the angular image size. The shorter the reading distance , the greater the angular image size. We hope to come out with a basic size and a smaller and larger size to accommodate the great majority of book readers.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by avshadler

40 cm is good for hand held reading of 10 point type . When the reading distance is decoupled from the need to hold something in your hand -- and the person is looking more in the forward direction than down, the average measured chosen reading distance is greater than 50 cm for the equivalent of ten point type.

That has to be for people with at least average vision, not needing glasses, i.e. their focus has good accommodation. Also with a particular contrast, clear font, and good lighting.

It's simply not generally true.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by avshadler

Hand held reading distance for ten point type is slightly less for young -- high school graduate -- women that for hs grad. young men -- possibly because the women have arms that are about 10-12% shorter.
and larger size to accommodate the great majority of book readers.

Nothing to do with arm length!
Also Ethnic background, culture, writing system?

These seem like pretty poor & biased studies.

Any system is going to have to accommodate glasses unless it can separately do all the kinds of vision correction each eye needs, as even without astigmatism etc a long sighted or short sighted or person needing glasses for reading AND distance may need a different lens for each eye.

Too many products seem designed by US English speaking "white American males" for English speaking young white American males.

Or for an "average" (few people are "average") person rather than say 95% of people. Even stupid stuff like Men's shoes no smaller than UK 7, or Women's shoes no larger than UK 7.

Or designed for "average" size finger tips, finger length and grip size. Average is meaningless for human physical characteristics. The variation is enormous.

[avshadler]

Glad to hear from you!!

The Personal Reader is designed to go with prescription lenses if a person needs them. For a book that is in a format that is not restricted to a particular page size, the user can change the size of the font to as large or as small as they want. For those with cloudy media, they can change to thin white -- or colored -- letters on a dark background. For those who need much brighter light -- people in their 70's need about ten times the brightness for the same quality of reading experience as a person of 20 years -- the brightness can be increased by a factor of ten or more without worrying too much about burning out the system -- or disturbing other people nearby who are trying to sleep.

The studies of reading distance that I cited are biased by age -- the subjects were generally younger people 17-45 or so. They are also biased by other factors -- as you pointed out. But since people can change the size of the font -- in whatever writing system -- to suit their visual needs -- it should work across writing systems and cultures. I hope that we will be able to study the needs of all those who might benefit from the Personal Reader – so that we can tailor our efforts to do the most good.

Here are specific numbers from the study on normative reading distance . "…37 male and 41 female high school graduates. All were checked for 20/20 vision; 69% wore glasses. …They could hold the 10-point typewritten material anywhere desired… maximum distance 28.0 in., 95 centile, 21.6 in., median 15.8 in., 5th centile 10.0 in., minimum 7.5 in., M 16.2 in., and SD 3.4 in. There was an interesting but slight correlation of 0.175 (p = .01, 200 data points) between S's sex and voluntary reading distance. Girls tended to hold the paper slightly closer than boys; for all practical purposes, this effect was insignificant. A final interesting observation concerned the 69% who wore glasses. Wearing glasses was not associated with holding the stimulus sheet closer to the eyes (r = 0.035 between wearing glasses and reading distance)."

It was my idea that the difference in reading distance between the young men and women in this sample had to do with the length of their arms—since women's arms are 10% shorter than men's arms in this age group among the US population.

Notice that within the central 90% of the sample ratio of the longest to the shortest reading distance is 2.16:1 and between the extremes is this sample of only 70 people , it is 28:7.5 – almost a factor of 4.

At present our main design is 50 grams[ excluding prescription lenses ] , fits in a shirt pocket and presents a bright, sharp clear, full color, biocular image that is in portrait mode, with a 28 degree diagonal --about the size of and shape of a standard ipad at 50 cm from the eye. It is designed for comfortable sustained reading – not thrills with headaches. We also plan designs for those who prefer longer and shorter reading distances – though these may have different angular image sizes and weights.

If you have other studies of reading distance of other groups , writing systems etc., I hope that you will bring them to our attention .

[Quoth]

I hope it goes well. I've seen many good ideas bite the dust due to greedy Vulture Capitalists, Marketing, Bean counters, HR and inept managers. Never because it wasn't economically and technically possible.

[avshadler]

Many years ago, I was told by Edwin Land , [the founder of Polaroid] -- who at the time had the largest number of patents of any living person in the world -- that "Good ideas are rejected for good reasons and for bad reasons.-- mostly for bad reasons Don't get your hopes up."

One of the participants in this thread sent me an email [to avshadler@yahoo.com] -- requesting my one-pager on the Personal Reader -- and then sent me another email with more questions.

The following is adopted from my response to those questions.

Have you tried the "virtual swing" effect? I found that it works when I turn my head from side to side at a rate of one cycle per 2 or 3 seconds. It is probably very variable from person to person. If you try it with the Moverio, I'm not sure how it would work -- because you should have the majority of the field of view "real world" -- the lower and temporal thirds of the visual filed should be real world . With a page image seen thru the glasses -- probably, in the case of the Moverio dark print on a bright white background in an inside room with ordinary lighting -- no sun coming thru the windows. , no lamps visible through the page image. It would be better if the image of the page /text was not see through at all -- for this effect. Maybe there is a way to attach a small square piece of black paper to the outside of the glasses where the image is transmitted to the eye -- so that you see a clear bright page image against the real world -- but not see-through.

If you have 20 or so friends who would like to try the glasses, you can do a study to see how they like reading with them in general and then see if they experience anything unusual -- positive or negative-- in connection with the "virtual swing" effect. Don't tell them that you expect something positive . Ask them to move their heads in various ways and have them rate the sensation: fantastic!, very positive, positive, neutral, negative, very negative, makes me feel sick! --and see what you get . If you do a good study , you can publish it. If you are connected with a school/university , get a science teacher/professor involved -- so you can do the study in the best possible way. You can also just see how the users respond to reading a page or so on the system.

Moverio is not made for reading -- but the OLED micro-displays that it uses should be able to provide high quality imaging-- depending on the optics in the rest of the system. [The full color pixels are only one minute of arc as seen through the Moverio optics.] If the optics are well designed -- for reading -- the actual experience a person gets may depend on exactly where their eyes are located with respect to the system optics.-- so be sure to measure the distance between the pupils of those who try it . It may be if the distance between the pupils is much bigger or smaller than the average , the image quality may not be so good. It will also matter how far the glasses are from your eyes -- so measure that too -- and see -- when you are using them-- how distance from your eyes effects the image quality. You can use a camera to help make measurements and you can make a video of people using the glass to read -- including any spontaneous comments they may make. You can also use a resolution test chart to see how the image quality varies across the page image etc.

The Personal Reader is a lot easier in some respects to make than the Moverio system -- because it does not involve "see through" optics. Also, the image is not seen against a bright sky -- as when you would use the Moverio with a drone camera . The result is that the brightness and quality of the image for reading can be very high and the energy requirements can be made very low. You can read in the dark without disturbing others -- even in a sleeping bag at night-- where there is no room to hold a book or e-reader far enough from your face.. You can be "off the grid " and recharge the system with a small solar cell. You can read with both hands free -- to eat your breakfast , look at instructions and work with your hands , etc. It's also great for older people who need much brighter light for the same quality of reading experience.

I'd be glad to hear more of what you've experienced with the Moverio!

A. S. Adler
Personal Reader Project
Jerusalem

[avshadler]

One advantage of the Moverio is that you can read with both hands free in a very crowded place -- like a crowded subway or bus! Has anyone tried it? One of the disadvantages reading on most subways or buses -- or the back seat of a car -- is vibration. If you are holding your e-reader in your hands -- your hands will be vibrating -- or just moving in a way that makes reading more difficult. If the image is fixed to your head -- like the Moverio , maybe there is so little relative vibration that it is good for reading in a place where there is not only not enough space, but lots of vibration. If the image is set at "infinity", the vibrations will have even less effect. I discovered the "virtual swing" effect while testing the Personal Reader concept to see how it was influenced by vibration -- riding in the back seat of a car or on the New York Subway --- which is not the smoothest in the world!

[mdp]

I only found out yesterday that setting a "Battery Saver" mode on the Epson Moverio BT-300 does not impact the use of my software at all, apparently, and it has a massive impact on the duration of the battery charge: in "Battery Saver" mode one could achieve around 7.5 hours of use (instead of 5 to 5.5). You get well over one extra third worth of time.

I take the opportunity to confirm, one year later: the Epson Moverio BT-300, for my purposes, is one of the best purchases I have made in my life.

(Cleansing my former closing statement from unneeded references to historic accidents: ) ...And if for some reason the wilderness becomes unavailable, well, the AR set is equally perfectly useful on a treadmill.

[Dimos]

Originally Posted by mdp

I only found out yesterday that setting a "Battery Saver" mode on the Epson Moverio BT-300 does not impact the use of my software at all, apparently, and it has a massive impact on the duration of the battery charge: in "Battery Saver" mode one could achieve around 7.5 hours of use (instead of 5 to 5.5). You get well over one extra third worth of time.

I take the opportunity to confirm, one year later: the Epson Moverio BT-300, for my purposes, is one of the best purchases I have made in my life.

(Cleansing my former closing statement from unneeded references to historic accidents: ) ...And if for some reason the wilderness becomes unavailable, well, the AR set is equally perfectly useful on a treadmill.

Hi, do you think the new nreal ar glasses would be suitable for reading?
They have double the fov of bt300.

[mdp]

Originally Posted by Dimos

Hi, do you think the new nreal ar glasses would be suitable for reading?
They have double the fov of bt300.

Sorry for the delay Dimos, but surely you understand it has been (wish I could write 'had been') a quite difficult piece of times. I did check the product you pointed to in December, but was not convinced after a number of issues I noticed.
I do not want to write rushed rubbish, so I will post after I will have the time to check it properly.

[mdp]

Originally Posted by mdp

Do you also have the display contents alternating focus and out-of-focus?
As in "Do you also have the display contents"
where with black I meant "in focus" and with grey "out of focus".

And the areas out of focus become in focus (while others lose it) if you move the glasses farther or closer or if you pan them to the left or right.

I wanted to update on this matter, to reassure (you-all) that it is not a peculiarity with the device - it was (unreassuringly to me) a matter relevant with my eyes. As of a few months, I have been in need to wear prescription glasses before the Epson Moverio AR eyeset: the odd effect of less-focussed columns disappeared.

Originally Posted by mdp

I only found out yesterday that setting a "Battery Saver" mode on the Epson Moverio BT-300 does not impact the use of my software at all, apparently, and it has a massive impact on the duration of the battery charge: in "Battery Saver" mode one could achieve around 7.5 hours of use (instead of 5 to 5.5). You get well over one extra third worth of time.

This instead gave me recently odd results as I recently checked - my own main reading software seems to be signalling a consumption of 18 battery percent points per hour both in normal mode and in battery saving mode. It seemed to show a substantial difference in consumption when I tried originally. I will check more properly, but I was surprised.