JP3010458B2 - Safety glasses - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to safety glasses used for protecting eyes from external light, such as sunglasses and goggles.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, protective glasses such as sunglasses and goggles for protecting eyes from external light have been designed to reduce the amount of transmitted light by coloring the entire glass part, or That is, a so-called photochromic glass is used, which, when it receives a certain amount of light, is naturally colored to reduce the amount of light transmitted.

[0003]

However, in any of the conventional safety glasses, since the amount of transmitted light is almost uniformly reduced over the entire field of view in any case, light from a direction other than the direction in which dazzling is sensed. Is also weakened at the same time, making it difficult to understand the surrounding situation.

For example, when driving a car, when wearing safety glasses in order to prevent light reflected from a vehicle body traveling in front or sunset from coming directly into the eyes, the conventional Although the dazzling light is reduced, the surrounding scenery deviating from that direction is also darkened at the same time,
It becomes difficult to see the situation of other traveling vehicles and road signs. In particular, at night, when the headlights of the oncoming vehicle are dazzling, if such protective glasses are worn, the scenery deviated from the direction in which the light comes from becomes completely invisible, and it is extremely dangerous. Become.

The present invention has been made in view of such a problem, and locally reduces only the amount of transmission of light arriving from a direction in which dazzling is felt in the entire visual field, so that the visual field is uniform. It is an object of the present invention to protect the eyes by making the image look bright, and to make it easy to determine the surrounding conditions.

[0006]

The present invention adopts the following constitution in order to solve the above-mentioned problems.

That is, the safety glasses according to the present invention have a dot matrix type liquid crystal plate, and an image pickup unit is integrally provided in the vicinity of the liquid crystal plate. An image analysis unit for analyzing the luminance portion, a control processing unit for determining the positions of the dots on the liquid crystal plate corresponding to the high luminance portion analyzed by the image analysis unit and determining the light transmission amount of each of these dots; A dot driving unit for driving each dot of the liquid crystal plate determined by the control processing unit.

[0008]

In the above arrangement, an image in the visual field which can be observed through the liquid crystal plate is simultaneously picked up by the image pickup unit, and the image signal is sent to the image analysis unit. The image analysis unit analyzes the high-brightness portion from the captured image, and then the control processing unit obtains the positions of the dots on the liquid crystal plate corresponding to the high-brightness portion analyzed by the image analysis unit. The light transmission amount of each dot is determined, and a control signal of the light transmission amount is output to the dot driving unit. The dot driving unit drives each required dot on the liquid crystal plate based on the control signal. Thereby, only the transmission amount of the light arriving from the direction that is particularly dazzling is locally reduced in the entire visual field, and the visual field can be seen with uniform brightness.

[0009]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of safety glasses according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a specific configuration diagram of the safety glasses.

The safety glasses 1 of this embodiment are of a sunglasses type, and a pair of left and right liquid crystal plates 4a and 4b are fitted in an eyeglass frame 2. Each of these liquid crystal plates 4a,
Reference numeral 4b denotes a dot matrix type liquid crystal cell formed by sandwiching a liquid crystal cell formed by intersecting transparent electrode rows above and below a liquid crystal layer with a polarizing plate. Further, in the spectacle frame 2, the imaging units 6a and 6b are disposed in close proximity to the liquid crystal plates 4a and 4b, respectively.
6b is integrally fixed. Each of these imaging units 6a,
Reference numeral 6b denotes a small CCD camera in this example, and its imaging field of view is different from that of each of the liquid crystal plates 4a and 4b when the safety glasses 1 are worn.
It is set to be almost the same as the field of view seen through.

Then, each of the liquid crystal plates 4a, 4b and the imaging units 6a,
6b are connected to the control unit 12 via cables 8 and 10 passing through ear hooks of the frame 2, respectively.

The control unit 12 is adapted to be mounted in, for example, a pocket of clothes, and an image analysis unit 14 for analyzing a high-brightness portion from images picked up by the image pickup units 6a and 6b. A control processing unit 16 that determines the positions of the dots on each of the liquid crystal plates 4a and 4b corresponding to the high-brightness portion analyzed by the image analysis unit 14 and determines the amount of light transmission in each of these dots; A dot driving unit 18a that drives the determined dots of the liquid crystal plates 4a and 4b,
18b and a power supply 20 for operating the respective units 14 to 18a and 18b.
And

In the above configuration, when the safety glasses 1 are worn, images in the field of view that can be observed through the respective liquid crystal plates 4a and 4b are simultaneously imaged by both imaging units 6a and 6b, and the image signals are transmitted through cables 10a and 10b. Control unit 1 via
2 is sent to the image analysis unit 14. The image analysis unit 14
The data of the intensity distribution of the luminance is obtained from each of the captured images, and a high luminance portion equal to or higher than a preset threshold level is analyzed. The analysis data is sent to the control processing unit 16 at the next stage, and the control processing unit 16 obtains the positions of the dots on the liquid crystal plates 4a and 4b corresponding to the high-luminance portions analyzed by the image analysis unit 14, and Is determined for each dot. Then, the control signal of the light transmission amount is output to each of the dot driving units 18a and 18b. Each dot driving unit 18a,
Reference numeral 18b drives necessary dots of the liquid crystal plates 4a and 4b based on the control signal. Thereby, each liquid crystal plate 4a,
4b is the position of the driven dot (the liquid crystal plates 4a,
4b), the amount of light transmission is reduced.
For example, when the face is turned to a certain light source L that emits strong light, only the transmission amount of light arriving from the direction of the light source L is locally reduced so that the entire field of view can be seen as uniform brightness. Become.

Although the safety glasses 1 of the above embodiment are of a sunglass type which is worn on the body, the present invention is not limited to this. The present invention can be widely applied to a type such as patterned eyeglasses used in a portable computer. Further, in the above-described embodiment, the threshold value used as a guide for determining the high-luminance portion is fixed, but the threshold level can be appropriately adjusted according to the use time or the condition of the wearer's eyes. It is also possible to Further, the imaging units 6a and 6b are assumed to be for color images, and
a and 4b can also be used for color. In this case, only light of a specific color tone can be selectively transmitted by the liquid crystal plates 4a and 4B.
This is convenient because the color of the traffic light can be clearly identified.

[0015]

According to the present invention, only the amount of transmission of light arriving from a direction that is particularly dazzling in the entire visual field is locally reduced, so that the visual field can be seen with uniform brightness. . Therefore, while the dazzling light is eliminated and the eyes can be protected, the surrounding scenery deviating from that direction can be seen as it is. For example, when driving a car, erroneous judgment of the situation of another traveling vehicle or a road sign is made. Nothing.
Moreover, if the direction of the face is changed, the glasses become transparent immediately, and it is extremely convenient without having to remove the glasses one by one.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of safety glasses according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a specific configuration diagram of the safety glasses of FIG. 1;

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... safety glasses, 4a, 4b ... liquid crystal plate, 6a, 6b ... imaging unit,
14: Image analysis unit, 16: Control processing unit, 18a, 18b ...
Dot drive unit.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G02C 7/16 A61F 9/02 305 G02C 7/10 G02C 7/12

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. An image analysis unit having a dot matrix type liquid crystal plate and an image pickup unit integrally provided adjacent to the liquid crystal plate, and analyzing a high luminance portion from an image picked up by the image pickup unit. A control processing unit for determining the positions of the dots on the liquid crystal plate corresponding to the high-brightness portions analyzed by the image analysis unit and determining the amount of light transmission in each of these dots; and the liquid crystal determined by the control processing unit And a dot driving unit that drives each dot of the plate.