A machine-readable JSON Schema standard for describing human visual and auditory perception disorders — condition-agnostic, implementation-neutral, and compatible with Open mHealth.
Visual Snow Syndrome, migraine aura, glaucoma, macular degeneration, and over a dozen other neurological and retinal conditions produce rich, subjective visual experiences. No machine-readable standard exists for describing them. Researchers rely on free-text descriptions that cannot be pooled across studies, compared across clinics, or fed into machine learning pipelines.
OVS fills this gap. Every symptom type extends a common base schema with severity (0–1),
enabled, and an ISO 8601 effective_time_frame. Condition-specific fields
are added in child schemas via JSON Schema allOf composition.
The primary reference implementation is the Visual Snow Simulator — an open clinical tool generating the first structured digital phenotype for VSS.
Every symptom requires ovs_type, ovs_version, enabled,
severity (0–1), and effective_time_frame (ISO 8601 UTC). Additional fields are
symptom-specific.
{
"ovs_version": "1.0",
"session_id": "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
"recorded_at": "2026-05-31T12:00:00Z",
"profile": "ovs-profile:vss",
"subject_id": "VS-3A7F21",
"symptoms": [
{
"ovs_type": "ovs:vss-snow",
"ovs_version": "1.0",
"enabled": true,
"severity": 0.72,
"grain_size": 0.4,
"speed": 0.3,
"alpha": 0.6,
"pattern": "random",
"color_mode": "white",
"effective_time_frame": { "date_time": "2026-05-31T12:00:00Z" }
},
{
"ovs_type": "ovs:tinnitus",
"ovs_version": "1.0",
"enabled": true,
"severity": 0.45,
"subtype": "pure_tone",
"base_frequency": 4000,
"volume": 0.3,
"effective_time_frame": { "date_time": "2026-05-31T12:00:00Z" }
}
],
"wellbeing": {
"anxiety": { "value": 6, "scale": 10 },
"sleep_hours": 6.5
}
}
OVS maps onto Open mHealth
data points using schema_id.namespace = "ovs". The converter tool accepts
a Visual Snow Simulator export (ZIP or JSON, v4–v6) and downloads an omH-compatible JSON file.
The Visual Snow Simulator export format (v6) is an OVS-compliant implementation. Its field mapping is documented as a reference for other implementors.
Péter Szigeti — Research Lead, Entropy Vector Group S.R.L.
Joint PhD candidate, Óbudai University / Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania
Dr. László Bakó, Ph.D. — Group Research Leader, Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania
Supported by the Domus Group Research Grant (Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania). NLnet NGI0 Commons funding application in progress.