Assistive Visual Tool: Enhancing Safe Navigation with Video Remapping in AR Headsets

Abstract

Visual Field Loss (VFL) is characterized by blind spots or scotomas that poses detrimental impact on fundamental movement activities of individuals. Addressing the challenges (e.g., low video quality, content loss, high levels of contradiction, and limited mobility assessment) faced by existing Extended Reality (XR) systems as vision aids, we introduce a groundbreaking method that enriches the real-time navigation using Augmented Reality (AR) glasses. Our novel vision aid employs advanced video processing techniques to enhance visual perception in individuals with moderate to severe VFL, bridging the gap to healthy vision. A unique optimal video remapping function, tailored to our selected AR glasses characteristics, dynamically maps live video content to the largest intact region of the Visual Field (VF) map. Our method preserves video quality, minimizing blurriness and distortion. Through a comprehensive empirical user study involving 29 subjects with artificially induced scotomas, statistical analyses of object counting and multi-tasking walking track tests demonstrate the promising performance of our method in enhancing visual awareness and navigation capability in real-time. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.