Retinal-Resolution Varifocal VR

We develop a virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display (HMD) that achieves near retinal resolution with an angular pixel density up to 56 pixels per degree (PPD), supporting a wide range of eye accommodation from 0 to 4 diopter (i.e. infinity to 25 cm), and matching the dynamics of eye accommodation with at least 10 diopter/s peak velocity and 100 diopter/s2 acceleration. This system includes a high-resolution optical design, a mechanically actuated, eye-tracked varifocal display that follows the user’s vergence point, and a closed-loop display distortion rendering pipeline that ensures VR content remains correct in perspective despite the varying display magnification. To our knowledge, this work is the first VR HMD prototype that approaches retinal resolution and fully supports human eye accommodation in range and dynamics. We present this installation to exhibit the visual benefits of varifocal displays, particularly for high-resolution, near-field interaction tasks, such as reading text and working with 3D models in VR.