Is Foveated Rendering Perception Affected by Users’ Motion?

Virtual reality (VR) is gaining increasing popularity across various domains, but the current state of technology imposes limitations on the level of realism and complexity achievable in computer graphics when displayed through VR head-mounted devices (HMDs). To improve the user experience in HMDs, optimization techniques are needed to enhance performance without sacrificing quality. One such technique is Foveated Rendering (FR), which leverages the human visual system to optimize resource usage. FR degrades the image quality at the periphery of the human vision, where visual acuity is lower, to save resources. This paper aims to investigate if the perception of the peripheral area is affected whenever users are in movement in a VR environment. Our findings show a significant correlation between speed movement and Foveated rendering parameters in both scenarios. The least amount of degradation was observed in the idle state and the most in the high-speed state, indicating that users perceive less degradation at higher speeds. These results are particularly relevant for path-tracing-based algorithms, due to the possibility of reducing the number of rays required for the rendering whenever there is movement.