Retinex Effect to Allow the Blind to See

In 1971 by Edwin H. Land (inventor of instant photography) described formulated the "retinex theory" to explain an effect where people see colours consistently even why the colour of the light used to illuminate them changes. Hitachi claimed to have used this theory to develop an image processing algorithm which makes images appear brighter. They are able to increase the detail shown in dark areas of the image, without obvious distortion. I suggest if this works, the same process might be used to create images which can be seen by those with limited vision. To normally sighted people the images would look cartoon like (as discussed in "Video enhancement software for poor eyesight", ANU Project Code: CECS_686).