Design of an ultra-light head-mounted projective display (HMPD) and its applications in augmented collaborative environments

Head-mounted displays (HMDs) are widely used for 3D visualization tasks such as surgical planning, scientific visualization, or engineering design. Even though the HMD technologies have undergone great development, tradeoffs in capability and limitation exist. The concept of head-mounted projective displays (HMPDs) is an emerging Technology on the boundary of conventional HMDs and projective displays such as the CAVE technology. It has been recently demonstrated to yield 3D visualization capability with potentially a large FOV, lightweight optics, low distortion, as well as correct occlusion of virtual objects by real objects. As such, the HMPD has been proposed as an alternative to stereoscopic displays for 3D visualization applications. In this paper, a brief review the HMPD technology is followed by the presentation of a recent design and implementation of a compact HMPD prototype based on an ultra-light design of projective optics using diffractive optical element (DOE) and plastic components. Finally, we will include applications of the HMPD technology being developed across three universities for augmented visualization tasks and distributed collaboration in augmented environments.