OFH has designed over 100 custom LED optics and reflectors, including streetlights, flashlights and automotive lighting. But recently we helped out on one of our most compelling projects.
Design that Matters, a nonprofit focused on creating products to improve the services provided by NGOs in developing countries asked OFH to assist with a new phototherapy product.
Jaundice is a very common and easily treatable syndrome in newborn children, but when left untreated and in extreme cases brain trauma and neurological problems can result.
The solution is a simple light therapy. Exposure to 430– 490nm light breaks down the chemical which causes jaundice, and allows it to be excreted naturally.
We modeled the uniformity and efficiency of optics matched to a Seoul Semiconductor LED. Using the LED ray set provided by the vendor and the non sequential modeling tools in ZEMAX, OFH helped determine the number of LED’s needed, their optimal position and best lens. Given initial production volumes and delivery time requirements, it was decided than an off-the-shelf TIR lens should be used.
The beta versions of the phototherapy system will be delivered to a partner in Vietnam in the fall of 2011 with initial commercial production planned for 2012.
I just returned from the neighborhood Best Buy, where I finally tried the Nintendo 3DS. I simultaneously feel like the first kid on the block and the last kid on the block, seeing as how it’s only now available in the US, and my field-of-interest has long been stereoscopy.
Environmental and Retail Conditions
Best Buy store in Burlington, MA; bright, overhead fluorescent lighting
3DS tethered to a strong, heavy pullchain that let me get about 10″ (25 cm) away
The 3DS’s point-of-sale setup included: a large flatscreen display, presumably for a promotional video but today as on previous visits was black except for some error messages bouncing around, several 3DS systems still in inventory available for purchase, and one pre-loaded game on the demo 3DS
About 5-10 minutes of playing, ahead of other people who wanted a turn, and getting tired yanking on the security pull-chain
Impressions
Not only does the 3D look good, the gameplay and system design are up to Nintendo’s usual excellent standards. I found myself competing between a desire to just enjoy the game, and “be scientific” about analyzing the imagery
The 3D slider adjusts stereo disparity. Muting 3D makes disparity = 0.
I found the 3D very compelling for the flight simulator. I perceived about 1 inch of depth beyond the display, and maybe 0.5 inch in front. The game relied primarily on positive horizontal disparity (”far” depth), and this looked, for lack of a more expressive word, really great.
I continue to agree that handheld applications of 2-view autostereo (like the 3DS) are best, for now, because you automatically orient the screen properly.
The 3D effect added realism, excitement, and playability to the flight simulator game – these were diminished greatly in 2D mode.
Aside from 3D, the Nintendo 3DS has a range of improvements over prior DS systems: the screen is brighter, there is an analog controller, there are multiple cameras, internal sensors, etc.
General Comments
It was worth my time to seek out a 3DS to try. I don’t know how people who aren’t autostereo engineers will feel about it – I tried to see if the next people in line were squinting and struggling or not, but couldn’t.
The US$250 price is steep for me. This is on par with advanced systems like the PS3 or XBOX. At US$150 it would be more of a no-brainer.
I think that the industrial design is spot-on in this first release of the 3DS, unlike the initial release of the DS, which was chunky and dim.
Mathmatica note book(free download) Mathematica 7 notebook that will get you started with synthetic aperture photography, a branch of computational photography that lets you simulate the depth and width of a focal region of a “large lens” with multiple images acquired from one moving (or many stationary) smaller lenses.
If you live in the Boston area next week’s ENET meeting will be a good one.
“At the November 2nd meeting we will explore the strategies successful entrepreneurs have used to get their business up and growing without outside equity capital. Topics will include: SBIR funding, bootstrapping, business models and cash flow management methods that allow founders to maintain control and equity in their business.”
According to MIT Technology Review magazine, mobile 3D — that is, hologram-like 3-D and real-time 2D-to-3D conversion — is a top emerging technology in 2010.
Optics for Hire’s patent portfolio has multiple floating-image techniques (have you seen the patents page?), including those that are viable for mobile devices.
From April 24 – May 2, 2010, the Cambridge Science Festival offers a variety of fun and educational things to do. The events are at various sites around town.
For example: Saturday Apr. 24, (12.00p – 4.00p) at the newly-renovated Cambridge Public Library, learn about optics with the “OPTICS SUITCASE.” Always a well-attended event, members of the New England Section of the Optical Society of America will demonstrate a giant kaleidoscope, the optics of polarization, and other fun things. OFH’s Gregg Favalora, a member of the NES-OSA, will be part of the optics volunteer group that morning.
This is a question we get from time to time and the short answer is usually ‘no’. There are vendors who can provide this, but in our experience it really hasn’t been worth the effort to reverse engineer a lens.
While you could measure each lens element and get it’s radius, you then need to find out the refractive index of each piece of glass. This is not simple although it can be done. Then you need to get the spacing between the elements in the lens but sometimes in taking apart the lens you wind up destroying it.
Finally even if you succeed you don’t know the tolerances for the lens surfaces, the coatings, the centration tolerance or the spacing tolerance.
The time and money to do this doesn’t really pay off compared with making a new design. Assuming a client knows what they like about a lens, resolution, F# etc it’s quicker to make a new design.
The only situation that might make it worthwhile to reverse engineer is if you are trying to design a lens that will go in front of a common consumer lens. It’s not any easier, but the data collected could be useful in the design of the new attachment.
