Quantifying of vision through polymer dispersed liquid crystal double-glazed window

The visual linking of a building’s occupants with the outside views is a basic property of windows. However, vision through windows is not yet a metricized factor. The previous research employs a human survey methods to assess the vision through conventional windows. The recently fabricated smart films add a changeable visual transparency feature to the windows. The varied operating transparency challenges the evaluation of vision. Therefore, surveying human preferences is no longer a feasible approach for smart windows. This paper proposes an image-processing-based approach to quantify the vision quality through smart windows. The proposed method was experimentally applied to a polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) double-glazed window. The system instantaneously determines the available contrast band of the scenes seen through the window. The system adjusts the excitation of the PDLC film to maintain a desired vision level within the determined vision band. A preferred vision ratio (PVR) is proposed to meet the requirements of occupant comfort. The impact of the PVR on vision quality, solar heat gain, and daylight performance was investigated experimentally. The results show that the system can determine the available vision comfort band during daytime considering different occupant requirements.