Whether you’re using VR goggles with a built-in screen or one that uses your smartphone as a screen, the fact remains that the screen sits a mere 2 inches (more or less) from your eyes. Have you ever used your phone at 2 inches from your face?
Of course not, because your eyes won't be able to focus on anything close at hand. This is the magic of VR lenses. VR lenses do a job that other lenses can't do for our eyes. The PSVR prescription lenses corrects the angle of the light rays on the screen and aligns them with your eyes.
In this way, your eyes see the objects on the screen as they are. By transmitting light rays at parallel angles, VR lenses also help make the VR experience less stressful or taxing on your eyes.
In the early days of VR headphone technology, the screen door effect was one of the biggest problems. You can imagine what each image looks like if you look at it through a very fine grid – small squares separated by empty squares. This has nothing to do with the lens, but rather an artifact of how visual images are presented on all types of digital screens.
In digital displays, all visual data is represented by pixels. These are individual units and only a limited number can be displayed on one screen.
While the differences between pixels are difficult to see on any standard monitor, viewing the screen from very close up, such as on a VR headset, can greatly exaggerate the visual degradation caused by pixels.