Glasses With Fly-inspired Eyes Could Help The Visually Impaired Regain Clear Vision

Fly-inspired glasses may bring hope to individuals with macular degeneration. These innovative glasses utilize a design based on the structure of fly eyes to “fill in” the gap in the users’ central vision.

Macular degeneration, one of the leading causes of blindness, affects the central area of the retina known as the macula. In one form of the condition, light-sensitive cells in the macula are damaged by the buildup of cellular debris. In another form, abnormal blood vessels grow behind the retina, leaking blood into the macula and causing damage.

Regardless of the cause, those affected are left with either a blurry or completely blind spot in the center of their vision. To address this issue, New York-based startup Soliddd Corp has developed the SolidddVision Smartglasses.

How the glasses work

The glasses feature two forward-facing cameras positioned on the far left and right sides, which capture a stereoscopic view of the scene ahead. Additionally, two inward-facing cameras track the user’s gaze direction, while two internal displays—one for each eye—contain arrays of tiny lenses resembling the compound eyes of insects.

Each lens in the array projects a small version of the image captured by the forward-facing cameras onto the still-functional peripheral area of the retina, viewed from slightly different angles. This process, called stereopsis, allows the brain’s visual cortex to combine these slightly varied projections into a single, sharp, full-field 3D image, effectively eliminating the blind spot in the center.

According to Soliddd Corp scientists, the brain uses redundant visual information to fill in gaps. “If any area of the visual field lacks information, the brain patches in the missing details from another view,” they explain in a technical paper about the technology.

Promising results and next steps

In preclinical tests with 30 individuals with macular degeneration, all participants experienced at least a 50% increase in reading speed when using the glasses. The Lighthouse Guild, a nonprofit organization specializing in vision services, conducted these tests.

The SolidddVision Smartglasses team will showcase a prototype at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, with a commercial version expected later this year. They will announce the pricing details at that time.

It is worth noting that Samsung-funded South Korean startup Cellico already offers assistive glasses equipped with cameras. These devices capture an image of the user’s blind spot and project it into their peripheral vision, making it visible.

Read the original article on: New Atlas

Read more: Bat-Inspired Glasses Use Sound to Help the Visually Impaired Perceive their Surroundings