Abstract
Estimating the depth of virtual content has proven to be a challenging task in Augmented Reality (AR) applications. Existing studies have shown that the visual system makes use of multiple depth cues to infer the distance of objects, occlusion being one of the most important ones. The ability to generate appropriate occlusions becomes particularly important for AR applications that require the visualization of augmented objects placed below a real surface. Examples of these applications are medical scenarios in which the visualization of anatomical information needs to be observed within the patient's body. In this regard, existing works have proposed several focus and context (F+C) approaches to aid users in visualizing this content using Video See-Through (VST) Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs). However, the implementation of these approaches in Optical See-Through (OST) HMDs remains an open question due to the additive characteristics of the display technology. In this article, we, for the first time, design and conduct a user study that compares depth estimation between VST and OST HMDs using existing in-situ visualization methods. Our results show that these visualizations cannot be directly transferred to OST displays without increasing error in depth perception tasks. To tackle this gap, we perform a structured decomposition of the visual properties of AR F+C methods to find best-performing combinations. We propose the use of chromatic shadows and hatching approaches transferred from computer graphics. In a second study, we perform a factorized analysis of these combinations, showing that varying the shading type and using colored shadows can lead to better depth estimation when using OST HMDs.
Highlights
The use of focus and context visualization techniques [3], [23] to facilitate the presentation of hidden components located inside of solid opaque objects have been widely investigated in the past
We found that all visualizations perform worse on Optical See-Through (OST) than on Video See-Through (VST) regarding the error, supporting H1: All focus and context (F+C) Visualization techniques will result in inferior accuracy performance for OST, in comparison to VST
Results from our study showed that the virtual objects tend to be consistently perceived further away from the observer when using OST Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs)
Summary
The use of focus and context visualization techniques [3], [23] to facilitate the presentation of hidden components located inside of solid opaque objects have been widely investigated in the past. While AR enables users to visualize computer generated content consistently embedded with the real world, several perceptual issues can occur when users observe and interpret an AR environment [7], [32] These issues can be the result of multiple factors, such as the environment in which the AR system is used, the display technology employed, the design considerations to present the augmentations, and human factors. In this regard, existing works have identified visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, color perception and stereoacuity as four key measures that influence the visual capabilities associated to both, OST- and VST-HMDs [37]. Other studies have investigated depth perception in AR using egocentric and exocentric methods with OST and VST HMDs [39]
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More From: IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
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