IIS/HCI: Collaborative Research: Development and Assessment of Head-Mounted Fovea-Contingent Display Technology

虽然头盔显示器(HMD)技术经历了巨大的发展，其在3D可视化方面的功能优势已经得到认可，但它们受到了性能上的权衡和限制，这对可视化精度、用户性能和用户安全造成了严重影响。这些问题中最主要的是对眼球运动的无知。大多数最先进的头盔使用头部姿势来近似视线，这可能会导致用户预期观看的内容与他们实际看到的内容之间存在显著差异。将眼球跟踪功能整合到头盔显示器中将显著改善显示质量和用户界面。在这个项目中，PI将从低级光学配置优化头盔显示器-眼球跟踪器集成的概念设计；PI期望通过这种方式实现比集成现成的商用显示器和眼球跟踪器更紧凑、舒适、易于使用和可靠的系统。PIS将建立一套全面的方法来校准和定量评估试验台，并量化在头盔显示器中具有和不具有眼睛跟踪能力的虚拟物体的渲染和感知深度/大小表示；因此，PIS期望确定整合是否能够显著提高眼睛跟踪精度和显示质量的性能，因为这与增强环境中真实和虚拟物体配准的准确性和精确度有关。最后，将进行两项试点研究。其中第一个将探索一种独特的中心凹相关显示方案的概念，该方案利用光子学技术在凝视点放置高分辨率嵌件，创新地没有移动部件，以解决传统HMD中存在的视场和分辨率之间的权衡。第二个试点研究将调查远程协作环境中的“通过看来指向”的视觉界面，其中参与者的注意力焦点跟随远程合作者的关注点，或者反之亦然。浏览器影响：这项研究不仅将提高显示质量和用户界面，最重要的是它将推动增强现实技术的新的、令人兴奋的应用。特别是，新的HDM眼球跟踪器技术将为信息检索带来新的交互界面，将为人为因素和视觉研究提供更准确的眼动监测，将支持对虚拟环境中行为的改进评估，并将为某些类型的残疾人提供新的互动和沟通方法。基础光学科学和工程、计算机图形学、人为因素以及搭建试验台的实践经验的结合，将成为参与其中的研究生和本科生的极好的跨学科培训基础。

While head-mounted display (HMD) technologies have undergone significant developments and their functional benefits for 3D visualization have been recognized, they have suffered from tradeoffs and limitations in capability, which impose critical affects on visualization accuracy, user performance, and user safety. Chief among these problems is an ignorance of eye movement. Most state-of-the-art HMDs use head pose to approximate line-of-sight, which may cause a significant disparity between what users are intended to look at and what they actually see. The integration of eye tracking capability into HMDs would significantly improve display quality and user interface. In this project, the PIs will optimize the conceptual design of HMD-eye tracker integration from low-level optical configurations; the PIs expect to achieve by this means a more compact, comfortable, easy-to-use, and dependable system than would result from integration of off-the-shelf commercially available displays and eye trackers. The PIs will set up a comprehensive methodology to calibrate and quantitatively assess the testbed, and to quantify rendered and perceived depth/size representations of virtual objects with and without eye tracking capability in the HMD; the PIs expect thereby to determine whether integration can significantly improve the performance of both eye tracking accuracy and display quality as it relates to accuracy and precision of registration of real and virtual objects in augmented environments. Finally, two pilot studies will be pursued. The first of these will explore the concept of a unique fovea-contingent display scheme which utilizes photonics technology to position a high resolution inset at the gaze point, innovatively with no moving parts, in order to address the trade-off between field of view and resolution existing in conventional HMDs. The second pilot study will investigate a "pointing by looking" visual interface in remote collaborative environments in which the focus of attention of a participant follows the point-of-regard of a remote collaborator, or vice versa.Broader Impacts: This research will not only advance display quality and the user interface, but most importantly it will drive new and thrilling applications of augmented reality technology. In particular, the new HDM-eye tracker technology will lead to novel interactive interfaces for information retrieval, will provide more accurate eye-movement monitoring for human factors and vision research, will support improved assessment of behavior in virtual environments, and will afford new methods of interaction and communication for people with certain types of disabilities. The mixture of basic optical science and engineering, computer graphics, human factors, and hands-on experience with building a testbed will be an excellent interdisciplinary training ground for the graduate and undergraduate students involved.