Over at Technovelgy.com, I read that the compound eyes of the common housefly had inspired researchers at the Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California to develop fiber optic sensor to be used in robot vision. The housefly has a highly developed vision and it can locate small objects with high precision. The success of the research would mean an improvement to unmanned vehicles and industrial inspection robots.
The compound eyes of the housefly actually reminded me of pinhole glasses! I suppose pinhole glasses do not work exactly like fiber optic sensor but they are just as scientific. The technology of pinhole glasses is not new and like fiber optic sensor, it uses the principle of nature. Instead of the eyes of the common housefly, pinholes draw inspiration from the eyes of the mollusk Nautilus found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans which uses pinhole eyes effectively to scavenge for food.
Pinhole glasses work by feeding the pupil of the eyes with direct rays. Light rays coming at extreme angles require a large amount of refraction by the lens to form the correct image. Light rays coming at extreme angles require a large amount of refraction by the lens of the eyes to form the correct image. These rays are prevented from entering the eyes by pinholes and thus check them from distorting the image. A better image of better definition, clarity and brightness is thus formed on the retina.
The best thing about pinhole glasses perhaps is that they are said to be able to solve a variety of eye complaints like astigmatism, myopia etc. In that case, you would called pinhole glasses miracle glasses, wouldn't you?
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