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137

answers:

4

or even better, is there software available which can do it?

--new detail

to people that is saying that it's impossible, I remember that at college, stirring in the projector, the analogic focus could be changed so I could se a clear image without the glasses.

A: 

I wouldn't say it's possible. I'm badly nearsighted and all I see without my glasses is a blur. As far as I know, it's not possible to create an image that looks sharp after getting blurred by the viewer's eyes.

Matti Virkkunen
please, see my update on the question
Tom Brito
+5  A: 

Sadly, no. The problem with myopia is that the light coming into the eye is not focused correctly upon the retina. No matter what you do to an image, that image will come in unfocused. Unfocusing the image in any way will just mean that the viewer will have a blurrier image of a blurry object.

The crazy part of this answer: this could be possible if you had a monitor that, for each pixel, could potentially shine at different intensities/colors at different emission angles. If you had that setup, and had an image that supported it, and you knew the exact amount to adjust by, and could get the person to sit in exactly the right spot, you could potentially adjust it to be focused. However, this is more of a conceptual pipe dream than feasible reality.

EDIT: Tom asked me to respond to this:

I remember that at college, stirring in the projector, the analogic focus could be changed so I could se a clear image without the glasses.

I'll assume that you had either an overhead/film/lcd projector or something similar...I'm guessing it doesn't make a difference. They have manual focus features that can be used to bring the image in or out of focus...this is used to allow the image to focus correctly at different wall/screen distances. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "stirring in the projector"...but I'm going to assume you mean "staring into the projector".

I haven't tried this (and since I don't need glasses, I can't), but I suspect that this would work. But what you're doing is essentially the same thing as wearing glasses...you're looking at an image, and adjusting the focus to compensate for your myopia. The lens is inside the machine rather than in a pair of frames on your face, but the concept is otherwise very similar.

However, it doesn't mean that you can take an image on a screen and blur it and have it render correctly.

Without a diagram, it's difficult to explain why, but a simplified explanation about why they're not identical cases could be made like this...in the case of the projector/glasses, you're starting with a perfect image that isn't being focused correctly by a set of lenses, and then adjusting the lenses (adding glasses or changing focus on the projector) to correctly bring it into focus...and this is the critical part: you are not degrading the image in any way. You're just using refraction to change the angles at which the light is traveling.

On the other hand, if you have an image on a monitor, and you blur it in some way, you are changing and degrading the image itself. No matter how good the receptor viewing it is, the best it can do is the blurred image that is being displayed.

Okay, that's not satisfying probably, so I'm going to try to make a few pictures:

P will be our source point. It emits photons from it in every direction. Some of these photons go into our eye. If our eye is perfect, the lens focuses all of those rays onto a single point on the retina.

source point           P        
                      /|\ 
                     / | \
                    /  |  \
eye lens (ideal)   --------- 
                    \  |  /
                     \ | /
                      \|/
retina             ----p----    

For simplicity, I've drawn only three photons being emitted from the source point, but in reality there would be a large number of them, at many different angles. The point is that all of them should be focused by the lens onto a single spot on the retina.

But in a myopic eye, the focal point is before the retina, and so the rays cross over and do not hit at the same point on the retina.

source point           P        
                      /|\ 
                     / | \
                    /  |  \
eye lens (myopic)  --------- 
                    \  |  /
                      \|/
                       X
                      / \
retina             --p---p--

This is what causes blurring by myopia...each source point is seen a tiny bit in a few spots, rather than exactly one.

This also shows how glasses and staring into a projector can help...we're adding a second lens into the mix to compensate slightly for the not-perfect one. (Image slightly expanded)

source point              P        
                         /|\ 
                        / | \
                       /  |  \
glasses            ---------------
                    /     |     \
eye lens (myopic)  --------------- 
                    \     |     /
                     \    |    /
                      \   |   /
                       \  |  /
                        \ | /
                         \|/
retina             -------P-------

Notice the path of the light bends outwards slightly by the glasses...this is how they compensate for the lens in your eye.

Now is there anything can can be done by blurring the original image to compensate for this? Unfortunately, no. If we try to do this, we end up with something like this, with the source point now blurred into two locations that we'll call Q and R. If things work perfectly the blurred P (now Q and R) should reconstitute themselves correctly back into P: (I'm expanding the picture a bit for clarity...though it's still not great.)

First, we'll look at an ideal eye:

source point, blurred         R               Q        
                              |\             /|
                              | \           / |
                              |  \         /  |
                              |   \       /   |
                              |    \     /    |                                  
eye lens (ideal)            -------------------- 
                              \     \   /     / 
                                \    \ /    /
                                  \   X   / 
                                    \/ \/
                                    / X \
                                   //   \\                            
retina (and focus point)    ------q-------r-----

We get exactly what we expect from the ideal eye...a perfect replica of the original (blurred) image. (It's reversed, but that's okay; the focusing of the eye always does that...the brain flips it around so it looks correct.)

So what happens when we try the blurred image with the myopic eye?

source point, blurred         R               Q        
                              |\             /|
                              | \           / |
                              |  \         /  |
                              |   \       /   |
                              |    \     /    |                                  
eye lens (myopic)            -------------------- 
                              \     \   /     / 
                                 \   \ /   /
                                    \ X / 
focus point                          X X
                                  / /   \ \  
                               /   /     \   \                          
retina                      --q-- q-------r---r--

As you can see, our image has just gotten worse. Instead of recombining Q and R back into P, it's blurred them even more. We've taken a blurry image, and just made it more blurry.

I know the pictures aren't great, but I hope this makes things a bit clearer (no pun intended.)

Another Edit: Just as an aside, because I'm sure this will be brought up...the majority of the focusing power of the eye is not actually done by the "lens" of the eye, but rather by the cornea...or more specifically, light passing through the aqueous humor contained by the cornea. This is why laser surgery that reshapes the cornea can be used to correct eye focus problems. However, since "lens" is more familiar and makes semantic sense here, I'm sticking with that.

Beska
Good explanation. And, please, consider my update.
Tom Brito
maybe you should just had passed this link http://qbx6.ltu.edu/s_schneider/physlets/main/nearsighted.shtml :)
Tom Brito
I understand the lens thing, but it does not clear the fact that changing the projector's focus I can see better without glasses.
Tom Brito
by the way, with "stirring" I mean handling. If not synonimous, google's translator fault.. :)
Tom Brito
Simply put, I don't believe you. I don't intend that as an insult...I think circumstances must have conspired to mislead you. But for the reasons I describe above (and as ndim describes below), this simply doesn't make sense. I think you should try to reproduce this...my guess is that you had a very blurry image that when brought into correct focus looked better. You should try this again with an independent observer, and I *strongly* suspect that you will discover that something must have been amiss with your original observation.
Beska
+1  A: 

You would need a display which not only emits light, but emits that light into very specific directions such that it emulates the radiation falling into a mypic person's eyes when wearing glasses.

That would involve some kind of holographic display which I am not aware of existing at all.

In any case, this is a hardware (and wetware) problem, not a software one.

Update

For your case of directly staring into a projector (make sure you significantly dim the light beforehand to avoid completely ruining your eyes): You can focus the projector and put your eye into the proper position such that the radiation falling into the eye mimicks the radiation going through your glasses. You must not move your eye's position much, though.

ndim
please, see my update on the question
Tom Brito
I didn't say "staring", I said "stirring", as managing, handling..
Tom Brito
@Tom Brito: Well, I and ndim assumed "staring", because "stiring" makes no sense. It is in no way a synonym for "managing" or "handling"...that combined with the fact that "staring" actually makes sense, as I and ndim interpreted it, explains why we thought that was what you meant.
Beska
A: 

If there is software that would do it, I suspect an optometrist would know about it because the obvious application is to have a patient correct an image until a prescription can be derived.

I don't know near enough about the eye or optics to know if this is possible but I suspect if you could model how prescription lenses alter the light going into the eye (and such a function is invertible), you could alter the image so the pixels get sent to the right part of the eye.

Given all that, I'm sure there's some science that makes this really hard, if not impossible.

Austin Salonen
The problem is that while glasses are altering (via refraction) the light coming off the object, you're trying to alter the object itself (in this case, a screen). No matter what you do to a traditional screen, the images are going to come in blurry, because without proper refraction by some combination of lenses (cornea, lens, contacts, glasses), the image will not be properly focused upon the retina. Sadly, I don't think this is as clearly stated as I would like. This is really a case where I'd like to be able to draw a picture to demonstrate the issue...
Beska
please, see my update on the question
Tom Brito