GRIN lens

Augmented reality offers a better way to design, curate, and deliver consumable instructions by overlaying digital content in real-world work environments. When a business understands what AR is and how to utilize it successfully, everyone can work remotely while collaborating efficiently.

Besides industry-specific uses, many industries currently use AR apps to identify, track, and resolve technical issues. It can also help in other non-physical procedure cases like for marketing as a advertising, entertainment, and events tool by allowing users to get information simply through their phones.

A microlens array can be characterized by parameters such as focal length, quality of transmitted wavefront, and size. Many microlens arrays are made of UV fused silica, which has high transmission from the UV into the IR range. The fill factor will depend on the specific geometry of the microlenses and the arrangement chosen, but these arrays  are typically designed to have a high fill factor to avoid zero-order hotspots.  Their optical properties— large field of view angles, low aberration and distortion, infinite depth of field, and high temporal resolution— make them highly desirable for many different applications.

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As your team moves to integrate technology into your workflow and processes, adding an augmented reality solution can improve your business’s overall productivity while maximizing efficiencies using data-driven insights.

Fresnel lens

Microlens arrays may be produced as separate optical components, and even in mounted form, surrounded by metal or polymer that enables them to fit neatly into an optical mount. They can also be designed to incorporate directly into a larger optical system. Each microlens array may contain thousands or possibly even millions of tiny lenses, arranged to make a square grid, rectangle, or circle.

What is AR? Augmented reality is an enhanced, interactive version of a real-world environment achieved through digital visual elements, sounds, and other sensory stimuli via holographic technology. AR incorporates three features: a combination of digital and physical worlds, interactions made in real time, and accurate 3D identification of virtual and real objects.

As all technologies blur the lines between reality, determining a suitable use case for your business is crucial. For many businesses, AR is usually the easiest to integrate into the company’s processes.

One method of fabricating microlens involves photolithography, using a lens pattern defined by a photolithographic mask. Etching techniques are sometimes used, as are hot embossing and printing methods which rely on the surface tension of the liquified substrate.  Another manufacturing method involves using laser materials processing, and here sometimes the microlenses are formed individually using multiple processing beams. Laser materials processing offers more versatility than many other methods, but is also more expensive.

Powerphotonic

ThorlabsMicrolens Array

AR can also help guide and support employees regardless of their location, leading to better collaboration and safer working conditions in your fields. By enhancing traditional learning methods, this method can offer more information for better comprehension. Some ways your team could use AR would be:

Marker-less AR is more complex as there’s no point in which your device will focus on. Because of this, your device must recognize items as they appear in view. Using a recognition algorithm, the device will look for colors, patterns, and similar features to determine what that object is and then, using time, accelerometer, GPS, and compass information, it will or orient itself and use a camera to overlay an image of whatever you’d like within your real-world surroundings.

Are you intrigued by the world of microlens arrays, and would you like to have more information about just how they could be incorporated into your optical system? At Avantier, we specialize in creating custom optics that meet the exact needs of your application— and microlens arrays are one of our areas of expertise. Contact us today if you’d like more information or to set up an initial consult.

Dynamics 365 Guides incorporates AR to help you solve problems in real-time. With the ability to adapt by using training guides for training or day-to-day processes, you’re able to solve problems quickly and optimize your operations with on-the-job guidance.

Fabricating a microlens array is a little different from traditional lens manufacturing simply because the lenses we are working with are so very small. Typically, all of the microlenses in a microlens array are produced in just one step, and the manufacturing methods used are often adapted from semi conductor processing technology.

When used with CCD arrays and CMOS sensors, microlens arrays can collect light that would otherwise have fallen on non-sensitive sensor areas, thus improving efficiency. They are used to focus light for digital projectors and photocopiers.

Microlens

Augmented reality creates an immersive experience for all its users. Though the most common AR forms are through glasses or a camera lens, interest in AR is growing, and businesses are showcasing more types of lenses and hardware through the marketplace. There are five significant components of AR:

Marker-based AR is created using image recognition to identify objects already programmed into your AR device or application. When placing objects in view as points of reference, they can help your AR device determine the position and orientation of the camera. This is generally achieved by switching your camera to grayscale and detecting a marker to compare that marker with all the others in its information bank. Once your device finds a match, it uses that data to mathematically determine the pose and place the AR image in the right spot.

A Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor is an optical device used to measure the wavefront shape of incident light, often used in adaptive optics. It may be used to determine the wavefront shape of star light, in an optical telescope, or to determine the wavefront in an attenuated laser beam. An important component of the Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor is a microlens array, which probes the wavefront orientation from many separate points over the cross-section of the beam of light. Essentially what happens is that each of the tiny microlenses focuses the radiation it receives to a spot on the image sensor. Since the position of that spot tells us the orientation of that tiny piece of wavefront, a computer can use the aggregate data from each of the lensless on the microlens array to produce a good estimate of the wavefront distortions.

Microlens arrays are often used to homogenize  and shape beams, or to collimate the output of fiber arrays. Square array lenses, for instance, might be used in pairs for applications in welding, drilling, fiber coupling and laser ablation. Fly’s eye condenser arrays, which are formed of dual-surface micro cylindrical lenses, are ideal for flat-top and line generation. These arrays are often used when one has a large illuminated field but a very short working distance; for instance, in fluorescence microscopy, semiconductor instrumentation and in applications involving medical lasers.

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Microlens arrays can also be integrated into light field cameras, mounted between the main lens and light sensor. This enables the production of a  light, compact camera that does not require focus before capturing an image; the focus is chosen during  post-processing.

In the recent growth of types of virtual realities, it can be challenging to keep up because of their subtle differences. The types of digital realities are:

Other applications of these arrays include use as solar concentrators, focusing sunlight to solar cells; in the optical switches and modulators of fiber optical communication systems; in AR and VR imaging systems, and in optical microscopy and spectroscopy.

In deciding which type of AR technology you’ll need for your business, you’ll first have to determine what kind of AR to use. There are two types of augmented reality: marker-based and marker-less. Choosing one of these types of AR will determine how you’ll be able to display your images and information.

What if you could bring the power of nature’s compound eyes to your optical assembly— in a tiny package 10 mm x 10 mm? It turns out, you can! Whether you need to homogenize light from line-narrowed excimer lasers or high power LEDS, microlens arrays can give you the high efficiency and non-gaussian uniformity you need. These optical assemblies are composed of many tiny micro lenses, arranged in a one or two dimensional array.

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In the workplace, adding augmented reality to your processes and procedures can help enhance the learning and comprehension benefits for your employees. AR training is an educational experience presented through the software on AR devices to help employees gain critical professional skills. This type of training experience can be launched at any time, any place with the right software.