Background of the invention:

Head mounted optical apparatuses are somewhat restricted to virtual reality (VR), enhanced reality and night vision apparatuses, while binoculars and telescopes are rarely designed as head mounted or wearable apparatus. Wearable optical apparatus should have somewhat small sized and if one can walk or move while wearing it this should be safe.

Virtual or enhanced reality goggles are based on a very simple optical mechanism, looking at two separate screens or at one split screen via two identical condensing lenses, and the distance between the lens and the screen is equal or slightly smaller than focal length of the lens. One of the problems of this design is the need to adjust the distance between the centres of the two lenses to be equal to the distance between the two pupils of the user in order to avoid the prismatic effect of the lens and diplopia. Also the obligatory distance between the lens and the screen will make the apparatus protrudes markedly in front of the face and this may prevent adding additional possible functions .

Brief description of the drawing:

Fig 1: Cross sectional view showing all parts of the apparatus.

Fig 2: The optical mechanism of the apparatus and final image formation.

Detailed Description of the Invention:

As shown in Fig.1 the invention is an apparatus consist of two identical and adherent chambers, each chamber consist of one plane mirror (7, 8) that directly faces the eye of the user, and one tube (1 , 2) that faces the mirror from its external side and it is located in adjacent to the temple of the user, this tube contains one condensing lens (positive power lens) (5, 6) at its side that facing the mirror and at short distance from the mirror, and one digital screen (3,4) at the other side, with its additional electronic requirements as power supply, processor, internal memory .. all these electronic parts are gathered in a box (13, 14), the lens should be located between the screen and the mirror, and the distance between the lens and the screen should be less than the focal length of the lens in the way that the lens will form a virtual image for the picture in the screen, that image should be located at certain distance behind the screen (few meters), we will call this image 'primary image', and then this primary image will represent an object that the mirror will form for it a new virtual image that we will call 'final image', the distance between the mirror and the final image will be equal to the distance between the mirror and the primary image but the final image will be at the other side from the mirror (behind it).

The Two mirrors should be connected by an angle that protrude towards the user, this angle should be calculated accurately regarding to the distance between the image and the mirror and the distance between the two primary images in the way that this angle will make the two final images exactly in the same place.

Also there must be a barrier (15) between the two chambers in the way that that each eye of the user (22) will see the final image of one mirror only. This apparatus should has also the accessories required for being wearable on the head like a belt with adjustable length (16).

The previous parts are enough for the apparatus to work as a new type of virtual reality apparatuses, but adding 3D imaging system will add many possible functions, the 3D imaging system should consist at least of two cameras (9, 10), one at each side, but also it will be very useful to add another pair of cameras (11, 12) for 3D near imaging with optical magnification. Fig. 2 demonstrates the optical principals of the apparatus, each one of the small stars (17, 18) represents the picture on the corresponding screen, and each one of the large two stars (19, 20) behind the two screens is the primary virtual image formed by the corresponding lens, each mirror (7, 8) will form for the corresponding primary virtual image its final virtual image (21), the angle between the two mirrors as mentioned before will be calculated accurately for putting the two final images exactly in the same position in space, and for this reason the two final images are represented in Fig. 2 as single star (21), but despite of being in the same place, each one of these two final images will be seen by just one of the two eyes (22) of the user of the apparatus, and this is because of the barrier (15) which prevent each eye from seeing the image of the other mirror.

As all 3D optical devices, the small differences between the two pictures received by the two eyes will give rise to the stereoscopic perception by the user.

Adding the 3D imaging cameras (9, 10) will add some important functions to the apparatus, as capturing 3D pictures and videos, enhanced reality function by adding virtual stereoscopic things to the normal seen environment, and digital telescopic function by using the digital zoom and digital auto-focus properties.

Also we can get additional benefits by adding additional cameras (11, 12) for near 3D viewing with real optical magnification (not digital zoom) , this will allow the apparatus to work many important near tasks as medical and surgical tasks, delicate electronic tasks, and low vision aid... and adding headlight to the apparatus may also be very useful for these tasks.

As alternative to the additional cameras (11 , 12), additional lenses may be added manually to the basic cameras (9, 10) in order to achieve near focus with optical zoom. Anyone can use this apparatus regardless the distance between his eyes without any need for adjusting the distance between the lenses, and there is no problem caused by prismatic effect of the lenses. The other very important property of the apparatus is its small size especially regarding to its protruding in front of the face