Interactive virtual display

A flex sensor comprising:

• a housing;
• a plurality of light emitters mounted in said housing, which, when said housing is placed in a user's open hand, projects light beams in a detection plane above and across the extended medial four digits of the hand;
• a plurality of light detectors mounted in said housing, detecting reflections of the projected beams when the digits are flexed;
• and
• a lens structure positioned in relation to said light emitters and to said light detectors, directing emitter light out of the lens structure at a specific angle φ, and maximizing detection of light at each detector for light entering the lens structure at a respective location along the lens structure at a specific angle of incidence θ, substantially different than angle φ, whereby for each emitter-detector pair comprising one of said light emitters and one of said light detectors, maximum detection of light projected by the emitter of the pair, reflected by an object and detected by the detector of the pair, corresponds to the object being at a specific 2D location in the detection plane, in accordance with the locations of the one emitter and one detector and the angles θ and φ;
• and
• a processor receiving outputs from said sensor, mapping detections of light for a plurality of emitter-detector pairs to corresponding flexed digits, and translating the flexed digits to input for a system controlled by the user.

A reflectance sensor for a virtual display system comprising:

• a housing;
• a plurality of light emitters mounted in said housing, projecting a plurality of light beams across a detection plane;
• a plurality of light detectors mounted in said housing, detecting reflections of the projected light beams by an object in the detection plane;
• and
• a lens structure positioned in relation to said light detectors maximizing detection of light at each detector for light entering the lens structure at a respective location along the lens structure at a specific angle of incidence θ,
• whereby for each emitter-detector pair comprising one of said light emitters and one of said light detectors, maximum detection of light projected by the emitter of the pair, reflected by an object and detected by the detector of the pair, corresponds to the object being at a specific 2D location in the detection plane, in accordance with the locations of the one emitter and one detector and the angle θ;
• a processor receiving outputs from said detectors and identifying locations of objects in the detection plane based on detections of light for a plurality of emitter-detector pairs;
• and
• a wireless transmitter for sending the identified object locations to a head-up display that presents a GUI aligned with the detection plane, enabling the head-up display to map the identified object locations as interactions with corresponding elements in the GUI.