VEGO: A novel design towards customizable and adjustable head-mounted display for VR

Background: Virtual Reality (VR) technologies have advanced fast and have been applied to a wide spectrum of sectors in the past few years. VR can provide an immersive experience to users by generating virtual images and displaying the virtual images to the user with a head-mounted display (HMD) which is a primary component of VR. Normally, an HMD contains a list of hardware components, e.g., housing pack, micro LCD display, microcontroller, optical lens, etc. Settings of VR HMD to accommodate the user's inter-pupil distance (IPD) and the user's eye focus power are important for the user's experience with VR. Methods: Although various methods have been developed towards IPD and focus adjustments for VR HMD, the increased cost and complexity impede the possibility for users who wish to assemble their own VR HMD for various purposes, e.g., DIY teaching, etc. In our paper, we present a novel design towards building a customizable and adjustable HMD for VR in a cost-effective manner. Modular design methodology is adopted, and the VR HMD can be easily printed with 3D printers. The design also features adjustable IPD and variable distance between the optical lens and the display. It can help to mitigate the vergence and accommodation conflict issue. Results: A prototype of the customizable and adjustable VR HMD has been successfully built up with off-the-shelf components. A VR software program running on Raspberry Pi board has been developed and can be utilized to show the VR effects. A user study with 20 participants is conducted with positive feedback on our novel design. Conclusions: Modular design can be successfully applied for building up VR HMD with 3D printing. It helps to promote the wide application of VR at affordable costs while featuring flexibility and adjustability. © 2019 Beijing Zhongke Journal Publishing Co. Ltd