The EyeTap is a name for a device that is worn in front of the eye that An eye is an organ of vision that detects light. ...

• Acts as a camera to record the scene available to the eye, and
• Acts as a display to superimpose a Computer-generated imagery on the original scene available to the eye.

In order to capture what the eye is seeing as accurately as possible an EyeTap uses a beam splitter to send the same scene (with reduced intensity) to both the eye and a camera. The camera then digitizes the reflected image of the scene and sends it to a computer. The computer processes the image and then sends it to a projector. The projector sends the image to the other side of the beam splitter so that this computer generated image is reflected into the eye to be superimposed on the original scene. A camera is a device used to take pictures (usually photographs), either singly or in sequence, with or without sound recording, such as with video cameras. ... The seawater creature in The Abyss marked CGIs acceptance in the visual effects industry. ... A beam splitter is an optical device, that splits a beam of light in two. ...

C. Aimone with a one-eyed injection-molded EyeTap

Stereo eyetaps modify light passing through both eyes, but many research prototypes (mainly for reasons of ease of construction) only tap one eye. eyetap is also the name of an organization founded by inventor Steve Mann to develop and promote eyetap-related technologies such as wearable computing. Picture of C. Aimone with an injection moulded eyetap that was also shown at the Smithsonian, and will be on exhibit at digifest 2004. ... Picture of C. Aimone with an injection moulded eyetap that was also shown at the Smithsonian, and will be on exhibit at digifest 2004. ... Steve Mann (born 1962) is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto. ... A wearable computer is a small portable computer that is designed to be worn on the body during use. ...

Possible Uses

An EyeTap is somewhat like a Head-Up Display. The important difference is that the scene available to the eye is also available, now, to the computer that projects the Head-up Display. This enables the EyeTap to, in theory, modify the computer generated scene in response to the natural scene. One use, for instance, would be a Sports EyeTap: here the wearer while in a stadium would be able to follow a particular player in a field and have the EyeTap display statistics relevant to that player as a floating box above the player. The eyetap criteria are an attempt to define how close a real, practical device comes to such an ideal. EyeTaps will have great use in any field where the user would benefit from real-time interactive information that is largely visual in nature. This is sometimes referred to as "computer mediated reality". HUD of a F/A-18C A Heads-Up Display, or simply HUD, is any type of display that presents data without blocking the users view. ... The ability to add to, subtract information from, or otherwise manipulate ones perception of reality through the use of a wearable computer. ...

Using the eyetap as an electric seeing aid, (i.e., wearing it continuously) as one would wear traditional optical eyeglasses, makes lifelong video capture possible. Since many eyetap devices also record EEG (from the occipital lobe) and interface to other sensors (like ECG), the eyetap provides, in addition to other physiological sensors, a lifelong visual record called a CyborgLog. Such a log file is useful for health monitoring or personal safety, giving rise to the notion of "inverse surveillance" (sousveillance—while surveiller means "to watch from above," sousveiller means "to watch from below"). The general idea is a kind of expansion from the "community watch" neighborhood concept, but features the ability of common people to report on the activities of those "above" them, in positions of civil or military authority and power. Electroencephalography is the neurophysiologic exploration of the electrical activity of the brain by the application of electrodes to the scalp. ... Lead II An electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG, abbreviated from the German Elektrokardiogramm) is a graphic produced by an electrocardiograph, which records the electrical voltage in the heart in the form of a continuous strip graph. ... A CyborgLog (often abbreviated to glog) is a first-person recording of an activity, in which the person doing the recording is a participant in the activity. ... Sousveillance as a situationist critique of surveillance. ...

Note that the eyetap is not a simple display, although the eyetap does typically contain a computer-controlled laser light source that can synthesize new material in the eye (e.g. change a billboard in view of the wearer into a personal display such as email message). Unfortunately, a manufacturer of head-mounted displays has chosen a very similar name - "eyetop" - (perhaps to capitalize on the popularity of the eyetap name), and this has resulted in much confusion, because people have often (without careful analysis) thought that the eyetap was a display. James Fung has greatly advanced the actual research to the use of an eyetap to display data (using the Reality Window Manager), which runs at around 100 frames per second (more than 3 times faster than NTSC video) for replacement of billboards with Xwindows. Using RWM, it is actually therefore possible to use an eyetap as a display, although the original intent of the eyetap was for use as electric eyeglasses.

The EyeTap principle can also be applied to other forms of electromagnetic energy such as heat, as shown below:

Thermal EyeTap

Because the device intercepts rays of light that are colinear with rays passing through the exact center of the eye, when you look a glogger right in the eye, you see what looks like a lens or similar optical assembly that appears to be mounted right in their eye socket: Image File history File links Diagram of a Thermal Eyetap which can also be used as a night vision system that uses the EyeTap principle) I drew this image using a version of IDRAW that was running on my eyeglass-based computer system. ... Image File history File links Diagram of a Thermal Eyetap which can also be used as a night vision system that uses the EyeTap principle) I drew this image using a version of IDRAW that was running on my eyeglass-based computer system. ... A CyborgLog (often abbreviated to glog) is a first-person recording of an activity, in which the person doing the recording is a participant in the activity. ...

In fact, the iris of the glass lens is mapped exactly to the iris of the eye, which is also the same point that all the rays of laser light pass through on their way to the retina. Optometrist Mel Rapp, of Rapp Optical, is also working on fitting EyeTaps to specific individuals.

External links

• EyeTap device brief description
• eyetap.org
• Example picture of an eyetap in fiction