HCC:Small: A New Method for Evaluating Perceptual Fidelity in Computer Graphics

对于计算机图形学的许多应用，重要的是观看者感知所显示的图像中描绘的比例和空间布局的准确感觉。医学和科学可视化需要准确地传达有关潜在感兴趣实体的大小、形状和位置的信息。建筑和教育系统应该让用户对真实或虚拟环境的规模以及该空间中物体的排列有一个整体的感觉。模拟和培训系统需要允许用户使用与现实世界相同或相似的设施执行任务。尽管在计算机图形学中实现高水平的感知保真度很重要，但至今还没有确定的方法来评估计算机图形图像向观察者传达空间信息的程度。缺乏这样的方法是创建更有效的计算机图形系统的一个重大障碍，特别是对于非娱乐应用。在这个涉及计算机科学家和认知心理学家之间真正合作的多学科项目中，PI和他的团队将开发一种量化感知保真度的方法，该方法既可推广，又与任务相关。这项工作将首次系统地使用感知负担的概念，该概念被定义为对一个人自身行动能力的感知，用于表征计算机图形中空间感知的准确性。该方法涉及一个特定动作可以或不能在查看的环境中执行的口头指示。通过改变环境的空间结构，这些启示判断可以用来探索观众能够多准确地感知与动作相关的空间信息。结果是一种与动作相关的测量，与诸如大小或距离等更原始属性的口头报告相比，更不容易受到偏见的影响，并且适用于其中不能执行实际动作的非虚拟环境显示系统。更广泛的影响：这项研究将导致一种方法，对尚未开发的显示和渲染方法产生重大影响，并将导致特定领域系统的质量改进，超出当前的实践。项目成果将适用于广泛的显示技术和渲染技术，并将减少在更专门的任务执行情况衡量中发现的与培训和先前经验有关的混淆。这种合作的性质将带来一个特殊的教育环境，学生将从这种环境中获得深度和广度的经验，使他们特别有资格处理科学和工程方面的苛刻问题。调查人员在让本科生和女性参与研究方面有着良好的记录，并将在这项工作中延续这一传统。

For many applications of computer graphics, it is important that viewers perceive an accurate sense of the scale and spatial layout depicted in the displayed imagery. Medical and scientific visualizations need to accurately convey information about the size, shape, and location of entities of potential interest. Architectural and educational systems should give the user an overall sense of the scale of a real or hypothesized environment, along with the arrangement of objects in that space. Simulation and training systems need to allow users to perform tasks with the same or similar facility as in the real world. Despite the importance of achieving a high level of perceptual fidelity in computer graphics, there are as yet no established methodologies for evaluating how well computer graphics imagery conveys spatial information to a viewer. The lack of such methodologies is a significant impediment to creating more effective computer graphics systems, particularly for non-entertainment applications. In this multidisciplinary project involving genuine collaboration between computer scientists and cognitive psychologists, the PI and his team will develop a method for quantifying perceptual fidelity that is both generalizable and task-relevant. This work will be the first systematic use of the concept of perceived affordances, defined as the perception of one's own action capabilities, for characterizing the accuracy of space perception in computer graphics. The methodology involves a verbal indication that a particular action can or cannot be performed in a viewed environment. By varying the spatial structure of the environment, these affordance judgments can be used to probe how accurately viewers are able to perceive action-relevant spatial information. The result is a measure relevant to action, less subject to bias than verbal reports of more primitive properties such as size or distance, and applicable to non-virtual-environment display systems in which the actual action cannot be performed. Broader Impacts: This research will lead to a methodology that significantly impacts displays and rendering methods not yet developed, and will result in qualitative improvements in domain-specific systems that go beyond current practice. Project outcomes will be applicable across a broad range of display technologies and rendering techniques, and will reduce the confounds associated with training and prior experience found in more specialized task performance measures. The nature of this collaboration will lead to an exceptional educational environment, from which students will come away with a depth and breadth of experience which makes them especially well qualified to tackle demanding problems in science and engineering. The investigators have a well established record of involving undergraduates and women in research, and will continue that tradition with this work.