Human visual perception of region warping distortions with different display and scene characteristics

Perceptually based computer graphics techniques attempt to take advantage of limitations in the human visual system to improve system performance. This paper investigates the distortions caused by the implementation of a technique known as region warping from the human visual perception perspective. Region warping was devised in conjunction with other techniques to facilitate priority rendering for a virtual reality Address Recalculation Pipeline (ARP) system. The ARP is a graphics display architecture designed to reduce user head rotational latency in immersive Head Mounted Display (HMD) virtual reality. Priority rendering was developed for use with the ARP system to reduce the overall rendering load. Large object segmentation, region priority rendering and region warping are techniques that have been introduced to assist priority rendering and to further reduce the overall rendering load. Region warping however causes slight distortions to appear in the graphics. While this technique might improve system performance, the human experience and perception of the system cannot be neglected. This paper presents results of two experiments that address issues raised by our previous studies. In particular, these experiments investigate whether anti-aliasing and virtual environments with different scene complexities might affect a user's visual perception of region warping distortions.