Creating Augmented Reality Optics: The Successful Partnership of JOYA Team and Synopsys

Augmented reality (AR) has the potential to transform how we interact with the world, but its success largely depends on the design and development of an effective optical system. Enter the JOYA Team and their work with Brilliant Labs.

JOYA Team—an expert in augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) systems design and development—partnered with Brilliant Labs to create a second-generation AR product. The mission: to design an AR product that was simple, built on mature technology, open-source for application builders, compact, scalable, friendly to mass adoption, and above all, affordable.

To accomplish this task, JOYA chose to use Synopsys’ CODE V and LightTools. CODE V was employed for optical design, optimization, and tolerance sensitivity analysis. Particularly helpful was the CODE V Image Simulation feature, which gave an accurate and realistic assessment of the AR optical system’s visual image quality during the early design stages. It also allowed for insight into how the image would change with various eye positions of the AR system user.

Moreover, CODE V aided in defining a comprehensive set of product specifications that aimed to minimize design time, system complexity, and overall cost. It helped evaluate the impact on image quality when tolerances were relaxed to shorten production lead times.

Following coding and design, JOYA used LightTools to create a virtual prototype—or digital twin—of the product, replicating all effects of materials, coatings, and surface finishes. This allowed for an accurate evaluation and visualization of the AR system’s performance without the need for a physical prototype. It provided essential information about image quality and resolution, image uniformity, color quality, contrast, see-through performance, ghost images and artifacts, and image quality changes based on the system pupil/eye position.