Augmented and Virtual Reality Approaches to Help with Peripheral Vision Loss

Peripheral vision loss (also called tunnel vision) is one of the main visual field disorders that can be very frustrating, and affect confidence and main activities of the patient. In this paper, two promising solutions for the peripheral vision loss are presented and discussed. The first one uses optical see-through glasses that are augmented by computer-generated images to notify the user about any moving parts the peripheral vision area. The second solution is to create a complete artificial reality scene and display it in the healthy area of the eye. In this case, the lost part of the vision is provided by: (i) augmenting the captured scenes (via built-in cameras) and (ii) generating an artificial image for the peripheral vision. For both scenarios, a unit of ubiquitous computing is proposed to process and present the captured images in a way tailored to individual needs of the patients. Technical requirements and psychological aspects of the proposed solutions are also presented and discussed in this paper.