Towards Quantifying Depth and Size Perception in Virtual Environments

With the fast advance of real-time computer graphics, head-mounted displays (HMDs) have become popular tools for 3D visualization. One of the most promising and challenging future uses of HMDs, however, is in applications where virtual environments enhance rather then replace real environments. The difficulty comes from the fact that the relative registration of real and virtual environments is a difficult task to perform from both a computational and a perceptual point of view, those being tightly correlated. Given a computational model for stereoscopic viewing, a better understanding of depth and size perception in virtual environments is called for, as well as the relationships between perceived depths and sizes of real and virtual objects sharing a common visual space. This paper first discusses the important parameters within the model that need to be carefully evaluated and set for accurate calibration of the system. We then describe the experimental paradigm used for assessing depth perception of two generic objects, in this case a cube and a cylinder. Finally, experimental results of perceived depth of real and virtual generic objects are presented.