Head-mounted display luminance characterization for medical virtual reality

Luminance is one of the key considerations for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) displays as it affects image quality. We report on a probe design for measuring luminance of VR headsets. We compare the results with three commercially available luminance measurement systems. For performance characterization, we varied probe distance and the diameter of the dark spot at the center of a bright disk in our test patterns to minimize signal contamination from stray light and accurately measure low luminance values in the VR headsets.