Perceptual Studies for Foveated Light Field Displays

The human visual system can resolve higher spatial frequencies in the fovea than in the periphery. This property has been harnessed by recent 2D foveated rendering methods to reduce computation cost while maintaining perceptual quality. Inspired by this, we have conducted psychophysical experiments to study foveation of human visual systems for 4D light fields and evaluate our prototype system described in [Sun et al. 2017]. We measure, for the first time, the blur detection/discrimination and light field depth perception thresholds in up to 15 degree of visual eccentricity, and reject the idea of replacing the peripheral rendering with 2D billboards − 4D light fields are still required. The psychophysical data can also guide other foveated rendering approaches.