Sozzi Federica, Groß Henning, Ljubisic Bratislav, Adams Jascha, Gyacsok Andras, Graziano Giuseppe, Weiß Steffen, Pires Nuno D
BI X GmbH, Boehringer Ingelheim, Ingelheim, Germany.
Orbit Ventures GmbH, Hamburg, Germany.
Digit Health. 2025 Sep 15;11:20552076251365039. doi: 10.1177/20552076251365039. eCollection 2025 Jan-Dec.
Diagnosis and treatment of progressive eye diseases require effective monitoring of visual structure and function. However, current methods for measuring visual function are limited in accuracy, reliability, and usability. We propose a novel approach that leverages virtual reality (VR) technology to overcome these challenges, enabling more comprehensive measurements of visual function endpoints.
We developed VisualR, a low-cost VR-based application that consists of a smartphone app and a simple VR headset. The virtual environment allows precise control of visual stimuli, including the field of view, separation of visual input to the left and right eyes, control of visual angles and blocking of background visual noise. We developed novel tests for metamorphopsia, contrast sensitivity and reading speed that can be performed by following simple instructions and providing verbal responses to visual cues, without expert supervision. The smartphone app operates offline and processes all data locally.
We conducted empirical evaluations, including measurements of screen luminance, and performed simulations of psychometric functions to test the feasibility of building a visual function test device using widely available, inexpensive consumer-grade hardware. Our findings demonstrate the technical viability of this approach, and its potential to measure visual function endpoints during clinical development of new treatments or to support disease diagnosis and monitoring. We open-sourced the VisualR application code and provide guidelines for creating reliable and user-friendly VR-based tests.
Our results suggest that VR technology can open a new paradigm in visual function testing, and invite the wider community to build upon our work.
Visual function describes how well the eyes can see and process basic visual information. Testing visual function is important for diagnosing and treating eye diseases that can affect vision, but current methods for measuring it are often unreliable or too complex to be performed by users without professional assistance. We propose a novel approach that uses VR technology to enable affordable and user-friendly assessments of visual function. We developed VisualR, a VR-based application that runs on a smartphone together with a simple VR headset. VisualR enables users to perform various vision function tests by following simple instructions and providing verbal responses to the visual stimuli displayed on the screen. As VisualR is smartphone-based, it eliminates the need for costly or specialized equipment. Our work demonstrates the technical feasibility and potential of creating affordable, accessible VR-based visual test devices. We open-sourced the code of VisualR and invite the broader community to build upon this work.
进行进展性眼病的诊断和治疗需要对视觉结构和功能进行有效的监测。然而，当前测量视觉功能的方法在准确性、可靠性和可用性方面存在局限。我们提出一种利用虚拟现实（VR）技术来克服这些挑战的新方法，从而能够对视觉功能终点进行更全面的测量。
我们开发了VisualR，这是一款基于低成本VR的应用程序，由一个智能手机应用和一个简单的VR头戴设备组成。虚拟环境允许精确控制视觉刺激，包括视野、左右眼视觉输入的分离、视角控制以及背景视觉噪声的屏蔽。我们开发了用于测量视物变形、对比敏感度和阅读速度的新颖测试方法，这些测试可以通过遵循简单的指令并对视觉提示提供口头回应来进行，无需专家监督。智能手机应用程序可离线运行并在本地处理所有数据。
我们进行了实证评估，包括屏幕亮度测量，并进行了心理测量函数模拟，以测试使用广泛可用的、廉价的消费级硬件构建视觉功能测试设备的可行性。我们的研究结果证明了这种方法的技术可行性，以及在新治疗方法的临床开发过程中测量视觉功能终点或支持疾病诊断和监测的潜力。我们将VisualR应用程序代码开源，并提供创建可靠且用户友好的基于VR的测试的指南。
我们的结果表明，VR技术可以在视觉功能测试方面开创一个新的范式，并邀请更广泛的社区在我们的工作基础上继续开展研究。
视觉功能描述了眼睛看清和处理基本视觉信息的能力。测试视觉功能对于诊断和治疗可能影响视力的眼病很重要，但当前测量视觉功能的方法往往不可靠，或者过于复杂，没有专业协助用户无法进行。我们提出一种利用VR技术实现经济实惠且用户友好地评估视觉功能的新方法。我们开发了VisualR，这是一款基于VR的应用程序，可与一个简单的VR头戴设备一起在智能手机上运行。VisualR使用户能够通过遵循简单的指令并对屏幕上显示的视觉刺激提供口头回应来进行各种视觉功能测试。由于VisualR基于智能手机，因此无需昂贵或专门的设备。我们的工作证明了创建经济实惠、易于使用的基于VR的视觉测试设备的技术可行性和潜力。我们将VisualR的代码开源，并邀请更广泛的社区在这项工作的基础上继续开展研究。
