Analysis of depth perception in smart phone HMDs

Abstract

Background/Objectives: New Content on head mounted displays can cause visual discomfort. The objective of this research is to improve the viewing experience on smart phone based head mounted displays. Methods/Statistical analysis: Through an experimental setup we demonstrate how existing stereoscopic content can be displayed differently applying different settings for the head mounted display. The different settings represent different virtual viewing distance. Content is processed and rendered as clips. These clips are screened to test viewers on calibrated smart phone based head mounted displays. We then conducted a survey asking the viewers to evaluate the viewing comfort of the different settings. Findings: The test persons each watched six movie clips with a duration of 30 seconds and had to read the numbers from -3 to 3 printed on a virtual test chart, each representing values ranging from positive to negative parallax. After viewing the movie clips on a smart phone based head mounted display, the test persons were requested to evaluate the comfort level during the viewing of the test pattern at different distances. The test persons where asked to give a score between 1 (very uncomfortable) up to 5 (very comfortable) for each viewing situation. The survey was analyzed and showed that virtual further viewing distances have a tendency to be more comfortable for most viewers. Our survey shows that the movie clip representing a virtual 10m screen positioned around 7m distance from the viewer was perceived as the most comfortable. Improvements/Applications: The virtual viewing distance can increase the comfort in virtual reality applications. Taking account human factors, application developers can improve the viewing experience for the users. © 2018, Institute of Advanced Scientific Research, Inc. All rights reserved.