Panoramic, large-screen, 3-D flight display system design

The report documents and summarizes the results of the required evaluations specified in the SOW and the design specifications for the selected display system hardware. Also included are the proposed development plan and schedule as well as the estimated rough order of magnitude (ROM) cost to design, fabricate, and demonstrate a flyable prototype research flight display system. The thrust of the effort was development of a complete understanding of the user/system requirements for a panoramic, collimated, 3-D flyable avionic display system and the translation of the requirements into an acceptable system design for fabrication and demonstration of a prototype display in the early 1997 time frame. Eleven display system design concepts were presented to NASA LaRC during the program, one of which was down-selected to a preferred display system concept. A set of preliminary display requirements was formulated. The state of the art in image source technology, 3-D methods, collimation methods, and interaction methods for a panoramic, 3-D flight display system were reviewed in depth and evaluated. Display technology improvements and risk reductions associated with maturity of the technologies for the preferred display system design concept were identified

Visual discomfort whilst viewing 3D stereoscopic stimuli

3D stereoscopic technology intensifies and heightens the viewer s experience by adding an extra dimension to the viewing of visual content. However, with expansion of this technology to the commercial market concerns have been expressed about the potential negative effects on the visual system, producing viewer discomfort. The visual stimulus provided by a 3D stereoscopic display differs from that of the real world, and so it is important to understand whether these differences may pose a health hazard. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the effect of 3D stereoscopic stimulation on visual discomfort. To that end, four experimental studies were conducted. In the first study two hypotheses were tested. The first hypothesis was that the viewing of 3D stereoscopic stimuli, which are located geometrically beyond the screen on which the images are displayed, would induce adaptation changes in the resting position of the eyes (exophoric heterophoria changes). The second hypothesis was that participants whose heterophoria changed as a consequence of adaptation during the viewing of the stereoscopic stimuli would experience less visual discomfort than those people whose heterophoria did not adapt. In the experiment an increase of visual discomfort change in the 3D condition in comparison with the 2D condition was found. Also, there were statistically significant changes in heterophoria under 3D conditions as compared with 2D conditions. However, there was appreciable variability in the magnitude of this adaptation among individuals, and no correlation between the amount of heterophoria change and visual discomfort change was observed. In the second experiment the two hypotheses tested were based on the vergence-accommodation mismatch theory, and the visual-vestibular mismatch theory. The vergence-accommodation mismatch theory predicts that a greater mismatch between the stimuli to accommodation and to vergence would produce greater symptoms in visual discomfort when viewing in 3D conditions than when viewing in 2D conditions. An increase of visual discomfort change in the 3D condition in comparison with the 2D condition was indeed found; however the magnitude of visual discomfort reported did not correlate with the mismatch present during the watching of 3D stereoscopic stimuli. The visual-vestibular mismatch theory predicts that viewing a stimulus stereoscopically will produce a greater sense of vection than viewing it in 2D. This will increase the conflict between the signals from the visual and vestibular systems, producing greater VIMS (Visually- Induced Motion Sickness) symptoms. Participants did indeed report an increase in motion sickness symptoms in the 3D condition. Furthermore, participants with closer seating positions reported more VIMS than participants sitting farther away whilst viewing 3D stimuli. This suggests that the amount of visual field stimulated during 3D presentation affects VIMS, and is an important factor in terms of viewing comfort. In the study more younger viewers (21 to 39 years old) than older viewers (40 years old and older) reported a greater change in visual discomfort during the 3D condition than the 2D condition. This suggests that the visual system s response to a stimulus, rather than the stimulus itself, is a reason for discomfort. No influence of gender on viewing comfort was found. In the next experiment participants fusion capability, as measured by their fusional reserves, was examined to determine whether this component has an impact on reported discomfort during the watching of movies in the 3D condition versus the 2D condition. It was hypothesised that participants with limited fusional range would experience more visual discomfort than participants with a wide fusion range. The hypothesis was confirmed but only in the case of convergent and not divergent eye movement. This observation illustrates that participants capability to convergence has a significant impact on visual comfort. The aim of the last experiment was to examine responses of the accommodation system to changes in 3D stimulus position and to determine whether discrepancies in these responses (i.e. accommodation overshoot, accommodation undershoot) could account for visual discomfort experienced during 3D stereoscopic viewing. It was found that accommodation discrepancy was larger for perceived forwards movement than for perceived backwards movement. The discrepancy was slightly higher in the group susceptible to visual discomfort than in the group not susceptible to visual discomfort, but this difference was not statistically significant. When considering the research findings as a whole it was apparent that not all participants experienced more discomfort whilst watching 3D stereoscopic stimuli than whilst watching 2D stimuli. More visual discomfort in the 3D condition than in the 2D condition was reported by 35% of the participants, whilst 24% of the participants reported more headaches and 17% of the participants reported more VIMS. The research indicates that multiple causative factors have an impact on reported symptoms. The analysis of the data suggests that discomfort experienced by people during 3D stereoscopic stimulation may reveal binocular vision problems. This observation suggests that 3D technology could be used as a screening method to diagnose un-treated binocular vision disorder. Additionally, this work shows that 3D stereoscopic technology can be easily adopted to binocular vision measurement. The conclusion of this thesis is that many people do not suffer adverse symptoms when viewing 3D stereoscopic displays, but that if adverse symptoms are present they can be caused either by the conflict in the stimulus, or by the heightened experience of self-motion which leads to Visually-Induced Motion Sickness (VIMS)

A Neurophysiologic Study Of Visual Fatigue In Stereoscopic Related Displays

Two tasks were investigated in this study. The first study investigated the effects of alignment display errors on visual fatigue. The experiment revealed the following conclusive results: First, EEG data suggested the possibility of cognitively-induced time compensation changes due to a corresponding effect in real-time brain activity by the eyes trying to compensate for the alignment. The magnification difference error showed more significant effects on all EEG band waves, which were indications of likely visual fatigue as shown by the prevalence of simulator sickness questionnaire (SSQ) increases across all task levels. Vertical shift errors were observed to be prevalent in theta and beta bands of EEG which probably induced alertness (in theta band) as a result of possible stress. Rotation errors were significant in the gamma band, implying the likelihood of cognitive decline because of theta band influence. Second, the hemodynamic responses revealed that significant differences exist between the left and right dorsolateral prefrontal due to alignment errors. There was also a significant difference between the main effect for power band hemisphere and the ATC task sessions. The analyses revealed that there were significant differences between the dorsal frontal lobes in task processing and interaction effects between the processing lobes and tasks processing. The second study investigated the effects of cognitive response variables on visual fatigue. Third, the physiologic indicator of pupil dilation was 0.95mm that occurred at a mean time of 38.1min, after which the pupil dilation begins to decrease. After the average saccade rest time of 33.71min, saccade speeds leaned toward a decrease as a possible result of fatigue on-set. Fourth, the neural network classifier showed visual response data from eye movement were identified as the best predictor of visual fatigue with a classification accuracy of 90.42%. Experimental data confirmed that 11.43% of the participants actually experienced visual fatigue symptoms after the prolonged task

Object-based attentional expectancies in virtual reality

Modern virtual reality (VR) technology has the promise to enable neuroscientists and psychologists to conduct ecologically valid experiments, while maintaining precise experimental control. However, in recent studies, game engines like Unreal Engine or Unity, are used for stimulus creation and data collection. Yet game engines do not provide the underlying architecture to measure the time of stimulus events and behavioral input with the accuracy or precision required by many experiments. Furthermore, it is currently not well understood, if VR and the underlying technology engages the same cognitive processes as a comparable real-world situation. Similarly, not much is known, if experimental findings obtained in a standard monitor-based experiment, are comparable to those obtained in VR by using a head-mounted display (HMD) or if the different stimulus devices also engage different cognitive processes. The aim of my thesis was to investigate if modern HMDs affect the early processing of basic visual features differently than a standard computer monitor. In the first project (chapter 1), I developed a new behavioral paradigm, to investigate how prediction errors of basic object features are processed. In a series of four experiments, the results consistently indicated that simultaneous prediction errors for unexpected colors and orientations are processed independently on an early level of processing, before object binding comes into play. My second project (chapter 2) examined the accuracy and precision of stimulus timing and reaction time measurements, when using Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) in combination with a modern HMD system. My results demonstrate that stimulus durations can be defined and controlled with high precision and accuracy. However, reaction time measurements turned out to be highly imprecise and inaccurate, when using UE4’s standard application programming interface (API). Instead, I proposed a new software-based approach to circumvent these limitations. Timings benchmarks confirmed that the method can measure reaction times with a precision and accuracy in the millisecond range. In the third project (chapter 3), I directly compared the task performance in the paradigm developed in chapter 1 between the original experimental setup and a virtual reality simulation of this experiment. To establish two identical experimental setups, I recreated the entire physical environment in which the experiments took place within VR and blended the virtual replica over the physical lab. As a result, the virtual environment (VE) corresponded not only visually with the physical laboratory but also provided accurate sensory properties of other modalities, such as haptic or acoustic feedback. The results showed a comparable task performance in both the non-VR and the VR experiments, suggesting that modern HMDs do not affect early processing of basic visual features differently than a typical computer monitor

Stereoscopic 3D Technologies for Accurate Depth Tasks: A Theoretical and Empirical Study

In the last decade an increasing number of application fields, including medicine, geoscience and bio-chemistry, have expressed a need to visualise and interact with data that are inherently three-dimensional. Stereoscopic 3D technologies can offer a valid support for these operations thanks to the enhanced depth representation they can provide. However, there is still little understanding of how such technologies can be used effectively to support the performance of visual tasks based on accurate depth judgements. Existing studies do not provide a sound and complete explanation of the impact of different visual and technical factors on depth perception in stereoscopic 3D environments. This thesis presents a new interpretative and contextualised analysis of the vision science literature to clarify the role of di®erent visual cues on human depth perception in such environments. The analysis identifies luminance contrast, spatial frequency, colour, blur, transparency and depth constancies as influential visual factors for depth perception and provides the theoretical foundation for guidelines to support the performance of accurate stereoscopic depth tasks. A novel assessment framework is proposed and used to conduct an empirical study to evaluate the performance of four distinct classes of 3D display technologies. The results suggest that 3D displays are not interchangeable and that the depth representation provided can vary even between displays belonging to the same class. The study also shows that interleaved displays may suffer from a number of aliasing artifacts, which in turn may affect the amount of perceived depth. The outcomes of the analysis of the influential visual factors for depth perception and the empirical comparartive study are used to propose a novel universal 3D cursor prototype suitable to support depth-based tasks in stereoscopic 3D environments. The contribution includes a number of both qualitative and quantitative guidelines that aim to guarantee a correct perception of depth in stereoscopic 3D environments and that should be observed when designing a stereoscopic 3D cursor

A Virtual Testbed for Fish-Tank Virtual Reality: Improving Calibration with a Virtual-in-Virtual Display

With the development of novel calibration techniques for multimedia projectors and curved projection surfaces, volumetric 3D displays are becoming easier and more affordable to build. The basic requirements include a display shape that defines the volume (e.g. a sphere, cylinder, or cuboid) and a tracking system to provide each user's location for the perspective corrected rendering. When coupled with modern graphics cards, these displays are capable of high resolution, low latency, high frame rate, and even stereoscopic rendering; however, like many previous studies have shown, every component must be precisely calibrated for a compelling 3D effect. While human perceptual requirements have been extensively studied for head-tracked displays, most studies featured seated users in front of a flat display. It remains unclear if results from these flat display studies are applicable to newer, walk-around displays with enclosed or curved shapes. To investigate these issues, we developed a virtual testbed for volumetric head-tracked displays that can measure calibration accuracy of the entire system in real-time. We used this testbed to investigate visual distortions of prototype curved displays, improve existing calibration techniques, study the importance of stereo to performance and perception, and validate perceptual calibration with novice users. Our experiments show that stereo is important for task performance, but requires more accurate calibration, and that novice users can make effective use of perceptual calibration tools. We also propose a novel, real-time calibration method that can be used to fine-tune an existing calibration using perceptual feedback. The findings from this work can be used to build better head-tracked volumetric displays with an unprecedented amount of 3D realism and intuitive calibration tools for novice users

Change blindness: eradication of gestalt strategies

Arrays of eight, texture-defined rectangles were used as stimuli in a one-shot change blindness (CB) task where there was a 50% chance that one rectangle would change orientation between two successive presentations separated by an interval. CB was eliminated by cueing the target rectangle in the first stimulus, reduced by cueing in the interval and unaffected by cueing in the second presentation. This supports the idea that a representation was formed that persisted through the interval before being 'overwritten' by the second presentation (Landman et al, 2003 Vision Research 43149–164]. Another possibility is that participants used some kind of grouping or Gestalt strategy. To test this we changed the spatial position of the rectangles in the second presentation by shifting them along imaginary spokes (by ±1 degree) emanating from the central fixation point. There was no significant difference seen in performance between this and the standard task [F(1,4)=2.565, p=0.185]. This may suggest two things: (i) Gestalt grouping is not used as a strategy in these tasks, and (ii) it gives further weight to the argument that objects may be stored and retrieved from a pre-attentional store during this task

Biosignalų požymių regos diskomfortui vertinti išskyrimas ir tyrimas

Comfortable stereoscopic perception continues to be an essential area of research. The growing interest in virtual reality content and increasing market for head-mounted displays (HMDs) still cause issues of balancing depth perception and comfortable viewing. Stereoscopic views are stimulating binocular cues – one type of several available human visual depth cues which becomes conflicting cues when stereoscopic displays are used. Depth perception by binocular cues is based on matching of image features from one retina with corresponding features from the second retina. It is known that our eyes can tolerate small amounts of retinal defocus, which is also known as Depth of Focus. When magnitudes are larger, a problem of visual discomfort arises. The research object of the doctoral dissertation is a visual discomfort level. This work aimed at the objective evaluation of visual discomfort, based on physiological signals. Different levels of disparity and the number of details in stereoscopic views in some cases make it difficult to find the focus point for comfortable depth perception quickly. During this investigation, a tendency for differences in single sensor-based electroencephalographic EEG signal activity at specific frequencies was found. Additionally, changes in eye tracker collected gaze signals were also found. A dataset of EEG and gaze signal records from 28 control subjects was collected and used for further evaluation. The dissertation consists of an introduction, three chapters and general conclusions. The first chapter reveals the fundamental knowledge ways of measuring visual discomfort based on objective and subjective methods. In the second chapter theoretical research results are presented. This research was aimed to investigate methods which use physiological signals to detect changes on the level of sense of presence. Results of the experimental research are presented in the third chapter. This research aimed to find differences in collected physiological signals when a level of visual discomfort changes. An experiment with 28 control subjects was conducted to collect these signals. The results of the thesis were published in six scientific publications – three in peer-reviewed scientific papers, three in conference proceedings. Additionally, the results of the research were presented in 8 conferences.Dissertatio

Saillance Visuelle, de la 2D à la 3D Stéréoscopique : Examen des Méthodes Psychophysique et Modélisation Computationnelle

Visual attention is one of the most important mechanisms deployed in the human visual system to reduce the amount of information that our brain needs to process. An increasing amount of efforts are being dedicated in the studies of visual attention, particularly in computational modeling of visual attention. In this thesis, we present studies focusing on several aspects of the research of visual attention. Our works can be mainly classified into two parts. The first part concerns ground truths used in the studies related to visual attention ; the second part contains studies related to the modeling of visual attention for Stereoscopic 3D (S-3D) viewing condition. In the first part, our work starts with identifying the reliability of FDM from different eye-tracking databases. Then we quantitatively identify the similarities and difference between fixation density maps and visual importance map, which have been two widely used ground truth for attention-related applications. Next, to solve the problem of lacking ground truth in the community of 3D visual attention modeling, we conduct a binocular eye-tracking experiment to create a new eye-tracking database for S-3D images. In the second part, we start with examining the impact of depth on visual attention in S-3D viewing condition. We firstly introduce a so-called "depth-bias" in the viewing of synthetic S-3D content on planar stereoscopic display. Then, we extend our study from synthetic stimuli to natural content S-3D images. We propose a depth-saliency-based model of 3D visual attention, which relies on depth contrast of the scene. Two different ways of applying depth information in S-3D visual attention model are also compared in our study. Next, we study the difference of center-bias between 2D and S-3D viewing conditions, and further integrate the center-bias with S-3D visual attention modeling. At the end, based on the assumption that visual attention can be used for improving Quality of Experience of 3D-TV when collaborating with blur, we study the influence of blur on depth perception and blur's relationship with binocular disparity.L'attention visuelle est l'un des mécanismes les plus importants mis en oeuvre par le système visuel humain (SVH) afin de réduire la quantité d'information que le cerveau a besoin de traiter pour appréhender le contenu d'une scène. Un nombre croissant de travaux est consacré à l'étude de l'attention visuelle, et en particulier à sa modélisation computationnelle. Dans cette thèse, nous présentons des études portant sur plusieurs aspects de cette recherche. Nos travaux peuvent être classés globalement en deux parties. La première concerne les questions liées à la vérité de terrain utilisée, la seconde est relative à la modélisation de l'attention visuelle dans des conditions de visualisation 3D. Dans la première partie, nous analysons la fiabilité de cartes de densité de fixation issues de différentes bases de données occulométriques. Ensuite, nous identifions quantitativement les similitudes et les différences entre carte de densité de fixation et carte d'importance visuelle, ces deux types de carte étant les vérités de terrain communément utilisées par les applications relatives à l'attention. Puis, pour faire face au manque de vérité de terrain exploitable pour la modélisation de l'attention visuelle 3D, nous procédons à une expérimentation oculométrique binoculaire qui aboutit à la création d'une nouvelle base de données avec des images stéréoscopiques 3D. Dans la seconde partie, nous commençons par examiner l'impact de la profondeur sur l'attention visuelle dans des conditions de visualisation 3D. Nous quantifions d'abord le " biais de profondeur " lié à la visualisation de contenus synthétiques 3D sur écran plat stéréoscopique. Ensuite, nous étendons notre étude avec l'usage d'images 3D au contenu naturel. Nous proposons un modèle de l'attention visuelle 3D basé saillance de profondeur, modèle qui repose sur le contraste de profondeur de la scène. Deux façons différentes d'exploiter l'information de profondeur par notre modèle sont comparées. Ensuite, nous étudions le biais central et les différences qui existent selon que les conditions de visualisation soient 2D ou 3D. Nous intégrons aussi le biais central à notre modèle de l'attention visuelle 3D. Enfin, considérant que l'attention visuelle combinée à une technique de floutage peut améliorer la qualité d'expérience de la TV-3D, nous étudions l'influence de flou sur la perception de la profondeur, et la relation du flou avec la disparité binoculaire