Projects

DiCE: Dichoptic Contrast Enhancement for VR and Stereo Displays

Fangcheng Zhong, George Alex Koulieris, George Drettakis, Martin S. Banks, Mathieu Chambe, Fredo Durand, Rafał K. Mantiuk

Abstract

In stereoscopic displays, such as those used in VR/AR headsets, our eyes are presented with two different views. The disparity between the views is typically used to convey depth cues, but it could be also used to enhance image appearance. We devise a novel technique that takes advantage of binocular fusion to boost perceived local contrast and visual quality of images. Since the technique is based on fixed tone curves, it has negligible computational cost and it is well suited for real-time applications, such as VR rendering. To control the trade-off between contrast gain and binocular rivalry, we conduct a series of experiments to explain the factors that dominate rivalry perception in a dichoptic presentation where two images of different contrasts are displayed. With this new finding, we can effectively enhance contrast and control rivalry in mono- and stereoscopic images, and in VR rendering, as confirmed in validation experiments.

Video

Materials

• Paper [pdf, 3.9MB]
• Video [mp4, 28.4MB]
• Supplementary material [Hi-res pdf, 5.7MB]/[Small pdf, 1.2MB]
• SIGGRAPH '19 Poster [Hi-res pdf, 15.6MB]/[Small pdf, 1.3MB]
• Presentation slides
• Test images
• The method packaged as a Unity Asset
• Matlab code

Publication

Fangcheng Zhong, George Alex Koulieris, George Drettakis, Martin S. Banks, Mathieu Chambe, Fredo Durand, and Rafał K. Mantiuk. DiCE: Dichoptic Contrast Enhancement for VR and Stereo Displays. ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH Asia), 2019

Poster

Fangcheng Zhong, George Alex Koulieris, George Drettakis, Martin S. Banks,Mathieu Chambe, Fredo Durand, and Rafał K. Mantiuk. DiCE: Dichoptic Contrast Enhancement for Binocular Displays ACM SIGGRAPH 2019 Posters

Media coverage

Road to VR: Researchers Develop Method to Boost Contrast in VR Headsets by Lying to Your Eyes, Nov 2019

Acknowledgements

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 765911 (RealVision).

Contact

Please contact Fangcheng Zhong or Rafał Mantiuk with any questions regarding the technique.