Vari-focal glasses are all very well, but I’d like to see something a bit more adaptive.
Imagine a pair of spectacles fitted with a rangefinder of the type supplied in autofocus cameras. Each of the lenses is circular and can be driven by an independent motor to rotate in a housing which only allows the eye to see through a portion of each lens (think CD drive control, here).
In today’s invention, these lenses would have optical properties which varied with circumferential position (12 o’clock might have a much greater refractive index and/or curvature than 3 o’clock).
The lenses automatically and independently react to the distance signals given by the rangefinding mechanism, so that the retinal images remain in focus as one’s viewing direction changes.
