Dynamic Foveated Rendering for Redirected Walking in Virtual Reality

PubDate: August 2020

Teams: Concordia University

Writers: Yashas Joshi;Charalambos Poullis

PDF: Dynamic Foveated Rendering for Redirected Walking in Virtual Reality

Abstract

In this work we present a novel technique for redirected walking in VR based on the psychological phenomenon of inattentional blindness. Based on the user’s visual fixation points we divide the
user’s field of view (FoV) into zones. Spatially-varying rotations are then applied according to the zone’s importance and are rendered using foveated rendering. Our technique is real-time and applicable to small and large physical spaces. Furthermore, the proposed technique does not require the use of stimulated saccades [Sun et al. 2018] but rather takes advantage of naturally occurring major and minor saccades and blinks to perform a complete refresh of the framebuffer. We performed extensive testing with the analysis of the results presented from three user studies conducted for the
evaluation. Results show that the proposed technique is indeed viable and users were able to walk straight for more than 100m inVE within the confines of 4x4m2 of PTS.