Occlusion-capable optical viewing device and associated method

An occlusion-capable viewing device comprising:

• an imaging lens, a collimating lens, and a virtual display module, and between the imaging lens and the collimating lens, an image inverter and a spatial light modulator, wherein:
• the imaging lens projects a first inverted image of a scene on to an entrance surface of the image inverter;
• the image inverter rotates the first inverted image to yield a first upright image;
• the spatial light modulator attenuates a first image-region of the first upright image to produce a modulated optical beam;
• the collimating lens collimates the modulated optical beam to yield a collimated optical beam;
• and
• the virtual display module includes a display device and a light combiner, which combines (i) the collimated optical beam and (ii) illumination emitted by the display device to yield an occluded image.