Virtual chameleon- A system to provide different views to both eyes

Some species of reptile, herbivore and fish are capable to independently control both eyes and perceive images of surrounding environment for watching predatory behaviors or avoiding dangers. Among them, chameleons can locate the prey with large and independent saccades of the highly mobile eyes. In contrast, Human cannot control both eyes independently except for convergences or divergences, and cannot perceive independent view fields for both eyes because motor system and cognitive functions of the human differ from those of chameleons. It is not clear, however, whether this is due to just the control mechanism of the eyes or due to total vision processing system. Then we assumed that the human becomes able to perceive the images for both eyes and control visual axes with an appropriate support. In this paper, we describe a system to provide two independent view fields to both eyes of human by combining two CCD cameras independently controlled and a head-mounted display. This system was composed of a camera positioning system, a 3D tracking system, and a display system. The camera positioning system controls views of two platforms equipped with CCD cameras independently. Desired angles were computed from coordinates of three-dimensional positions sampled by 3D tracking system. Position sensors of the tracking system were set on the fingers of both hands of the user. Visions taken by CCD cameras were projected onto the head-mounted display, which was equipped with two independent monocular display modules ahead of right and left eye. The system was examined by twelve volunteers. Eleven users became able to control two different view fields independently after some practice. Through the trial use, it was thought that the system has the capability to be used for the study of visual perception and to have some practical applications.