Alleviating Visual Impairments through Mediated Video See-through Displays

According to the World Health Organisation, over 2.2 billion people worldwide suffer from vision impairments. While some visual impairments can be treated through optometry or surgical interventions; many common visual impairments currently have no cure and limited treatment options. Recent investments in Augmented Reality (AR) Head Mounted Displays (HMDs) has led to more affordable, more comfortable, and more performant equipment with higher resolution cameras and displays, and there is ongoing research in the School of Product Design on the use of these AR HMDs to simulate visual impairments to enable designers to empathise and create products which are more accessible for visually impaired people. This purpose of this PhD research project is to build on this research, exploring the use of cutting-edge AR HMDs to mediate reality to alleviate the effects of visual impairments.

Required skills/prior qualifications, and funding associated with the project:

The candidate should have experience with software development (C# or C++ preferred).

Experience with Augmented Reality and Computer Vision would be very advantageous.

Familiarity working with game engines such as Unity and Unreal would be advantageous.

Knowledge of visual impairments would be nice to have.

Experience running user studies and working with the general public in a research environment would be preferable.