Simple computer visualization of laser eye dazzle

A technique is presented to simulate visually the appearance of laser dazzle to the human eye. This can reduce the need for human laser exposures in applications such as laser awareness training and laser dazzler effectiveness testing. The benefits of reduced human exposures include the reduced time and cost for experimentation, the ability to explore more complex parameter spaces, and the potential to simulate non-eye-safe laser exposures. In this implementation, an adapted version of the CIE general disability glare equation, which has been validated with human subject laser experiments, is used to determine the dazzle extent across the visual field. Simple image manipulation then permits the resulting dazzle field to be superimposed upon scene imagery to give a visualization of the severity of the dazzle in a given environment. Examples are presented that illustrate the increased dazzle field experienced with reduced ambient luminance and increased laser irradiance, including non-eye-safe levels. The algorithm's simplicity makes it ideally suited to applications where speed of processing and rapid effects assessment are required.