By knowing a person's eyeglass prescription, a computer should, in theory, be able to calculate how much distortion a person's vision will experience at any given distance. For instance, I'm near-sighted. Things appear more distorted the farther away they are. They start getting distorted at about 8 inches from my eyes, and things further away are proportionately more or less distorted depending on the distance. It's a pretty constant distortion rate. I can see well enough to get around and do just about anything without my glasses. I've even driven in heavy traffic without them a few times when they got broken and I didn't have a spare pair. My point is, I can do anything I need to do (except drive, because it was still scary as Hell!) but I have difficulty watching TV or viewing my computer screen or my cellphone screen. I think a computer programmed with my prescription should be able to calculate the distortion ratio at any given distance. This can be useful for viewing screens on electronic devices such as TVs, computers, cellphones, and digital book readers. Using a laser rangefinder on the device and a short-range radio transmitter on a pendant around my neck, the screen could calculate my distance from it and adjust the screen resolution to a point that I can see it as clearly as if I was wearing glasses. This would allow me to be able to move around my house and live in my house free of the annoyance of glasses. I could watch TV, view my cellphone screen, and visit the Halfbakery and I would only need my glasses when driving. It would require a modification of each electronic device, but they would be perfectly customized to my vision range. Not ideal for the rest of my family, but my fiance has her own computer and cellphone, and I could switch off the modifyer on the TV and put on my glasses whenever anyone else wants to watch. This would be perfect for single people, though.
-- 21 Quest, Apr 25 2009

From the movie Brazil http://blog.makezine.com/ElectriClerk.jpg
[normzone, Apr 26 2009]

//the screen could calculate my distance from it and adjust the screen resolution to a point that I can see it as clearly as if I was wearing glasses.//

Could you be more clear about the resolution-adjusting part? Do you mean that, say, your TV screen will quadruple in size so you can see it clearly, or do you mean some kind of lens system would bring the screen into focus for you? I'm not sure how such a lens system would work...
-- sninctown, Apr 25 2009


I mean the screen would sort of zoom in, making everything appear larger. It would, unfortunately, cut off parts of the screen around the edges, but it would be like the difference between fullscreen format and widescreen format, in constantly adjusting degrees whenever you move further from or closer to the screen. To see the kind of difference it would make, go into your computer's appearance settings and change the resolution to a lower setting. Look at all the settings available. those are basically degrees of magnification. this would automatically select the resolution that best fits your prescription every time you move. It would take some fancy electronics to make it a seemless transition, but I'm sure it could be done.
-- 21 Quest, Apr 25 2009


Resolution of human vision depends only to a very small degree on the resolution of the actual sensor matrix (aka retina). The limiting factor is the quality of the optical system. If someone does not have the effective resolution to recognize, say, features blow 1mm at a distance of a meter, blowing those features up will work (that is what the Windows-inbuilt screen magnifying glass is for, i guess), but only in making a small blurry thing into a large blurry thing. It is not the same as taking your eye nearer the object (1mm 1 meter away is not the same as 0.5mm 0.m away, optically).
-- loonquawl, Apr 26 2009


What [loonquawl] said.

Blurriness is not a function of the size of an object, but of the ability (or lack of) your lens to focus objects at a given distance on your retina. Small blurry objects will just become large blurry objects with magnification if the distance from your lens remains the same, although it may be easier to resolve individual large blurry letters than little ones.
-- shudderprose, Apr 26 2009


I find that paragraph breaks help a great deal.
-- normzone, Apr 26 2009


What happens if someone says, "Hey, come here and look at this."
-- Jscotty, Apr 26 2009



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