Design of optical see-through head-mounted display systems using freeform optics

Freeform surfaces are optical surfaces without linear or rotational symmetry. Their high degrees of design freedom liberate designers and engineers from restrictions on optical surface geometry, yielding compact and lightweight imaging systems with excellent optical performance. Freeform optics have become a competitive tool in the design of optical see-through head-mounted display (OST-HMD) systems. In this paper, we present two different OST-HMD systems which have different optical different configurations and both employ freeform optics to correct and balance optical aberrations. In the optimization design of the two OST-HMD systems, we start from a spherical imaging system with an on-axis configuration, and then tilt and decenter each optical surface to find a starting point. In the final state of optimization, the order of each XY polynomial used to represent the freeform surface is gradually increased. The modulation transfer functions of the two OST-HMD systems are evaluated and the three-dimensional models of the two systems are also presented.