rarinn

Few years have passed since I started experimenting with alternating occlusion / dichoptic devices. Now I think is a good time to describe my experience with those.First of all, my amblyopia is probably a result of a childhood brain trauma (for most other people strabismus or anisometropia is the cause). With my left eye I cannot read text that is not displayed in extremely large front (larger than the one on Kindle in Step 10), and even then I would have to read it very slowly. But at the same, my vision is quite sharp and the eye itself appears to be fine. It actually seems to be similar to what people with simultanagnosia are facing. While I’m focusing on one letter, neighboring ones disappear from my mind. It is much easier for me to focus on letters on edges of paragraph, than on the…

Few years have passed since I started experimenting with alternating occlusion / dichoptic devices. Now I think is a good time to describe my experience with those.First of all, my amblyopia is probably a result of a childhood brain trauma (for most other people strabismus or anisometropia is the cause). With my left eye I cannot read text that is not displayed in extremely large front (larger than the one on Kindle in Step 10), and even then I would have to read it very slowly. But at the same, my vision is quite sharp and the eye itself appears to be fine. It actually seems to be similar to what people with simultanagnosia are facing. While I’m focusing on one letter, neighboring ones disappear from my mind. It is much easier for me to focus on letters on edges of paragraph, than on the ones in the center.When I was much younger I was treated with eyepatches and some mysterious machines with hooded displays showing white dots on blue background (those machines were mounted on the table and were not dissimilar to Mr. Spock’s viewer/scope, if you have any idea what those were, please let me know). Those treatments weren’t much help, so I had to start building my own contraptions 20 years later.Alternating occlusion glasses did not turn out to be miracle cure. Nevertheless, after using them my vision “feels” different, saccadic eye movements can be improved and reading on Kindle with polarizing filters from Step 10 once made me see rainbowy curvy line (this was quite fascinating phenomenon, my wild theory is that this line was kind of a seam between not perfectly mapped to each other images from left and right eye). Also worth noting is that when I first started using my glasses, then after taking them off, my eyes could enter a state of quick involuntary movements for few minutes (something similar to nystagmus), this passed after a month or two of use.

It seems to be much better design than the one used in my own contraption.

I recently received a request for a help with modifying glasses source code so that lower frequencies of occlusions are supported. Overhauled firmware that now supports 2.5Hz, 5.0Hz, 7.5Hz, 10Hz, 12.5Hz, 1Hz, 0.5Hz, 0.2Hz, 0.1Hz, 0.05Hz (1Hz is the default value) can be found bellow:glasses_low_frequency.zip

Unfortunately, different 3Dglasses use different sync protocols, as described in followingarticles: Investigatingthe cross-compatibility of IR-controlled active shutterglassesReverse-Engineering& Emulating the Kogan Active-Shutter 3D TV IRProtocolSomeof 3D glasses may actuallyuse four token protocol ,where shutter in front of each eye is individually opened or closedby one of those four tokens (commands). That in theory should allowthat kind of 3D glasses to by driven by DIY emitterwith different frequencies and duty cycles.But very likely those glasses have some built-in protections, thatwon’t allow them to operate with weird timings. Ifyou are really afraid of making circuit with SMD components, you canalways turn to some of the techniques that I described in my previousInstructabl…

Unfortunately, different 3Dglasses use different sync protocols, as described in followingarticles: Investigatingthe cross-compatibility of IR-controlled active shutterglassesReverse-Engineering& Emulating the Kogan Active-Shutter 3D TV IRProtocolSomeof 3D glasses may actuallyuse four token protocol ,where shutter in front of each eye is individually opened or closedby one of those four tokens (commands). That in theory should allowthat kind of 3D glasses to by driven by DIY emitterwith different frequencies and duty cycles.But very likely those glasses have some built-in protections, thatwon’t allow them to operate with weird timings. Ifyou are really afraid of making circuit with SMD components, you canalways turn to some of the techniques that I described in my previousInstructable,namely constructing separate, large PCB and then connecting it toglasses with wires or attaching simpler version of circuit made withTHT components directly to glasses. Ialsodeveloped adevice that modifies video signal send from PC to 3D TV with alternatingocclusion training / dihoptic stimulation. It isn’t pretty andmodern but it still might be beneficial to some people. Of coursewatching3D content on aregular 3D TV won’tprovide tactileand kinesthetic feedback like the game described in this paper:Recoveringstereo vision by squashing virtual bugs in a virtual realityenvironmentIdealsetting fortreating amblyopia wouldbe probably custom made dichopticVRexperience using state of the art hardware likeKnuckles_EV2. Sadly, Iam not a game developer, so I can only provide microcontroller-basedsolutions. Also,I’m working on newer version of this video signal modifying device.Itis based on STM32 microcontroller in LQFP48 package (with 0.5mm leadsspacing, so really, soldering High Voltage Alternating OcclusionTraining Glasses which are based on a MCU in SOIC case [1.27mm spacing] is a piece of cake).There are some socioeconomic issues thatprevent me from using my computer lately (that is why my response isso delayed, I sincerely apologize), and my work on this new projectprogresses quite slowly. But anyway, I should release it beforeHalf-Life 3 comes out, so stay tuned!

Unfortunately, those motor drivers consume quite a lot of power (LV8548M requires typically 1.7mA when one of inputs is high, LB1948MC consumes 15mA). Voltage multiplier won't stand a chance. My MOSFET driver requires only 0.1-0.2mA.