Adaptive Optics

A technology that measures and corrects optical distortions in real time, originally developed for astronomical telescopes and now applied in ophthalmology and vision science. Adaptive optics systems use a wavefront sensor to detect aberrations and a deformable mirror or other corrective element to compensate for them. In the context of accessibility, adaptive optics principles have inspired software-based approaches to pre-compensate computer display content for users with visual aberrations, effectively creating a digital equivalent of the optical correction. While hardware adaptive optics (such as custom contact lenses or deformable mirrors) remain expensive and inaccessible to most users, software pre-compensation of displayed content offers a potentially more affordable path to improving screen readability for people with high-order visual aberrations.