Visual experience enhancement using adaptive computational imaging

2023 Fiscal Year Research-status Report

• Project/Area Number: 23KF0117
• Research Institution: Nara Institute of Science and Technology
• Principal Investigator: 内山 英昭 奈良先端科学技術大学院大学, 先端科学技術研究科, 准教授 (90735804)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): DUCROCQ JULIEN 奈良先端科学技術大学院大学, 先端科学技術研究科, 外国人特別研究員
• Project Period (FY): 2023-07-26 – 2025-03-31
• Keywords: Visualization / Zooming interface

Outline of Annual Research Achievements

As a new Metaverse experience named "Virtual Binoculars", we proposed an interface capable of interactively magnifying any convex shape, whose dimensions and zoom factor are controllable by the user. Magnifying a shape on the rest of the image, the effect of dual zoom lenses, occludes part of it. We therefore proposed a bifocal lens, which features a transition between the magnified area and the rest of the image, where the zoom factor decreases linearly.

Current Status of Research Progress

2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.

Reason

My research goal is to design a new Virtual Reality (VR) experience with interactive bifocal lenses, that magnify a sub-region of a scene with a transition, in the continuity of zooming interfaces. After learning the bases of VR implementation, I have established a general formula to apply bifocal lenses on an image. Then, thanks to shader rendering, I have implemented a real-time zooming interface where the user freely moves virtual lenses, and changes their parameters (zoom power, radius and transition width). Then, I have designed a user study experiment, where the participants have to adjust the parameters of virtual lenses and to perform a searching task and a viewing task with optimized lenses. I am currently conducting the experiments and learning how to analyze the results.

Strategy for Future Research Activity

This interactive visualization interface will be evaluated in a two-phase user study. In the first phase, participants were asked to adjust the parameters of radius, zoom factor and transition width of circular lenses. After analyzing the results, we determine the optimum parameters for two dual-zoom lenses and two bifocal lenses. In this study, participants perform two different tasks, under five different conditions - without a lens and then with all four lenses. In the first task, participants locate a series of specific individuals in a crowd, as quickly as possible. In the second task, participants are free to explore the nooks and crannies of landscape images.

Causes of Carryover

今年度参加予定であった国際会議を来年度に変更したためである．