Your eyes automatically focus at distance using the cornea. Fexible contacts reside on the cornea. with me so far?
Sensors on the contact measure the the cornea, thereby knowing how far away you are looking, and via bluetooth, display the distance on your watch.
The idea being that while you look at the flag, hit a button on your watch, and it calculates the distance.
I would imagine the first 50 or so times, you'd calculate the distance to your watch.
Other uses would be hunting/hiking/ etc.-- RockCrawler, May 04 2006 Gaze tracking http://www.diku.dk/.../eyegaze/node8.html [putterling, May 05 2006] So then you get a range by looking at something far, but then have to focus vary closley to see your watch in order to get the read-out?
"Why does thing thing ALWAYS read 16.5 inches?"-- Letsbuildafort, May 04 2006 or you could try to read the whole thing.
while you look, hit the watch button.
I even mention your point.-- RockCrawler, May 04 2006 If my eyes were so bad that I couldn't find my range, I'd wear contacts, too.
Fexible looks like it should actually be a word.-- half, May 05 2006 [half],
The contacts wouldn't necessarily be for vision improvement.... they could just be for rangefinding.
the //flexible// thing's pretty funny.-- RockCrawler, May 05 2006 The "couldn't find my range" thing was a joke, I say, it was a joke, son.
Could you really determine focal range based on the cornea alone? I thought more of the eye structure changed to achieve focus. Off I go to howstuffworks.-- half, May 05 2006 As you would have two of them (contacts), couldn't you calculate the angle (per each pupil) of offset, with something like the gaze tracking some PC (and warplanes/helicopters too?) input/control systems use, extrapolate the distance out until intersection, et voila?-- putterling, May 05 2006 I should imagine cornea movement is going to depend on each individual's sight isn't it? So aren't contacts going to have to be 'tailor-made' for each person?
If it can be done it'd be a nice idea though, so I'm going to give a [+].-- kuupuuluu, May 05 2006 I also doubt that the shape of the cornea would correlate very well with focal distance, since it is deformation of the lense (some distance behind the cornea) that causes focus to change. [kuupuuluu] You would just calibrate them with objects at measured distances, and software would do the rest. Easy.-- spidermother, May 05 2006 Phlish, I agree. I want to see a description of about half of what it would take to make this happen. Otherwise, it's just an idea for a spy movie.
I think that eyeballs focus to infinity about 50 feet away. From there to a few hundred feet distance is judged using stereo angles of the two eyes. This corneal idea would probably not work, even if the technology were possible. Other methods are available to measure range. Focus on a fishbone.-- baconbrain, May 08 2006 I just finished doing the eye in my medical physics course. the cornea difracts light coming into the eye most, focusing it into the eye, but its the lens that does the real focusing to allow you to see things in the distance.
Perhaps a device that finds ranges like radar or with infra red but could be aimed by your eyes via little monitors watching where your pupils are.-- Helixthecat, Dec 02 2006 random, halfbakery