Challenges to individuals with reduced vision or blindness have become a serious social concern, with issues such as lack of protection from falls from railway station platforms and street traffic accidents, as well as educational and career obstacles. ViXion is a startup firm that was spun off from the HOYA optical products and lenses manufacturer, and its corporate identity and product design were completed.
Nendo has revealed a mixed-reality headgear in collaboration with Japan-based startup ViXion, which is created exclusively for persons with impaired vision. ViXion is a stylish headset that aids the legally blind (or those who suffer from night blindness) in seeing their surroundings. The headgear has a camera that captures the scene ahead of the user, while an internal processor boosts the brightness and contrast of the footage and projects the visuals onto the wearer's eyes, allowing them to see better.
The ViXion is a headset that helps persons with low vision, low peripheral vision, or night blindness by brightening what's ahead of them, essentially performing the opposite of what sunglasses do. The headgear has a small visor with a fisheye camera in the center that captures footage from a wide range of angles. The footage is enhanced in order to make it more visible and then projected onto a semitransparent mirror display in front of the spectator. To meet their visual needs, the wearer can switch between black and white vision, black and white inversion, and high-contrast colors.
The camera lens in the middle of the frame catches images, which are then processed at a rapid speed to boost brightness and contrast to a level that a wearer with night blindness can easily see. The image is then projected in front of the wearer onto a semitransparent mirror display. One function boosts brightness above a preset threshold, while another alters visuals segment by section for usage in aquariums or on movie theater screens.
While the ViXion is a mixed-reality headset on paper, its function and intended audience distinguish it from most consumer-grade AR/VR headsets. For starters, because it's a visual aid, it's designed to be worn for extended periods of time, so it's smaller and lighter. On the surface, it straddles the line between a device and a pair of sunglasses (typically used by those with visual impairment), and it comes with a tinted visor on the front that helps create a dim environment for those semitransparent mirror displays to work. The ViXion is equipped with HOYA optics and even has the capacity to include corrective lenses for users who require vision correction.
Nendo is the designer behind this piece.
