Building a Cheap HUD for a Wearable Computer?

BJS asks: "I'm in the process of building a my first Wearable Computer. The last thing I have to do in it's construction is to make a heads up display system. I want to have something like an iScape2, a MicroOptical C3, or even this TekGear component, however I'm in collage so I can't afford to spend much. A friend of mine suggested that I find a broken camcorder online and mod the viewfinder. Dose anyone have any suggestions or experience in making their own HUDs? Does anyone know where I can find a broken camcorder or camcorder parts? And finally, what experiences have people had with making a wearable computer? Thank you, Slashdot!"

EyeTaps

[QuantumG]

Have a look at the book
Intelligent Image Processing [wearcam.org]. It describes how to make an EyeTap [eyetap.org] which is definitely what you want. To date these devices are not available for purchase :(

AAGGLL Re:EyeTaps

[Anonymous Coward]

Have any of you mods even followed the link QuantumG posted? How is this informative. The original question was for an affordable, home-brew HUD for a wearable computer.

How is ANYTHING on the EyeTap site "informative" on how to build such a display?

I mean, yea, it's a cool concept, but none of it is pratical in helping joe-slashdot build his cheap HUD.

Just cause some karma-whore has a link handy doesn't make it informative.

Re:AAGGLL Re:EyeTaps

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, how about http://www.eyetap.org/research/wearables/wearcomp/ wearhow/node16.html? took me all of five (interesting and informative) minutes or so to get there. How long did you spend on the site before making your judgement?

It's a good idea to do your homework before accusing others of not doing theirs...

Parts, and ideas...

[rusty0101]

For the camcorder, go have a look around on e-bay. I would suggest looking for one of the old analog tape recorders, either full size vhs, or vhs-c. The reason for the full size vhs is that most of the connectors may be reasonably easy to work with. Also on the full size VHS models, it was not at all unusual to find them as 'sholder mount', with the 'viewer' movable from one side to the other, and thus more easily removed.

As an alternative to e-bay, ask at a local camera store if they have some old analog tape camcorders that they are trying to get rid of. Let them know you are not concerned about the tape mechanism, or the lense for that matter.

I have had a couple of camcorders like this that would have worked well. None available at the moment.

The primary down side will be that most of these were black and white displays, so you will probably be limited to that as well.

I do not know for sure, but most of these should work well as 'tv' monitors, if the wearable you are making has vhs out, it should feed directly, though you will probably need to find some sort of power source to feed it as well.

As far as setting one up. I would recomend a system where you mount it to the side of a baseball cap, with the screen facing forward. Use a mirror to direct it 45 degrees across the front of your face, and a half mirror, or even a clear piece of plexiglass supported by the baseball cap to reflect a second time into your eye. The two 'mirrors' will reverse the video twice, so you will not need to find a way to reverse the video you are feeding to the screen.

You may also want to try tinting the second mirror using some of the off the shelf sunglass tinting kits, till you find a good ballance between the screen and your surroundings.

Yes, until you get a good setup, properly housed in a plastic case with a pair of headbands (over the top, and around the back) you are going to look like a geek playing around. Then again, it sounds like you are, so this should pose no shock to anyone.

-Rusty

Bah! The link is here.

[jabberjaw]

Terribly sorry about that [mit.edu].

Saving an LCD screen

[Cyberop5]

There was an ask slashdot article about saving LCD screen. People ask all the time about how useful an old device, like a laptop or pda is, if the hardware fails, but the screen is still good.

To summarize the results of the story, LCD screens are worthless without a proper controller chip specific to that display. And these controller chips arn't cheap or easy to find.

Unfortunatly, I couldn't find it on google.

Another way of doing it...

[howman]

Did you consider some form of projection instead of having to mount a heavy (relatively) screen from a boom in front of the eye, you can mount a fairly light relfective surface and bounce the image off it into the eye.
In this form you can use a fiber optic setup to the side of the face and project the image through a lens off the 'mirror' to the eye. At least you will not be too limited by screen resolution as such. The screen can be something as big as a laptop as long as the lens that picks up the image and transfers it to one end of the fiber does a decent job. On the other end a nice bubble lens should spread the image out nicely for you.
I messed about in my last year of design with a wearable system including a docking station for data transfer. It was purely a form study and had no working internals, but it was based on the reflection of image to the eye.
You can take a look at it Here [im-not.com]
please excuse the mess of the rest of my site. Haven't had time since graduation to rebuild it.